The Mark of Cain
by Sickle Sword
Summary: [Sequel to Before Night Awakens] FINALLY UPDATED!
1. Prologue

_Well, a fairly dark fic. Don't know what came over me, but it just begged to be written. Will continued as a sequel to Before Night Awakens but can be read separately. Hope you like it._

**Prologue**

My life was full of promises.

Promises that were given to me, ones that I have foolishly gifted others, and ones that faraway powers eluded from making true.

HE told me, told us, that we were special. That we were living in a new era. Ours. And I believed him. After all, who does not believe his own Creator?  
I believed him.

I believed of him, and in him.

I worshipped him. Thought he could protect me. Thought that with him at my side, I am in no need to be scared anymore. From anything.  
I was free.

From the moment I was born I knew that sense of indescribable freedom. We could do whatever we wanted. For we were different, my brother and I. We were the new breed of men. Powerful. Stronger.  
None could harm us.  
We rejoiced. We were careless.

We have paid for that dearly later.

Or more correctly, I have paid. For I have expected too much. I thought equality really existed. I've believed that being HIM makes him perfect, incapable of making mistakes. Loving us, all of us, just the same.

But HE loved my brother more.

Jealousy. Yes, I've experienced that acidic feeling many times in my childhood.

And just like always, I could feel it frothing inside me, filling my veins, throbbing and flowing from the pits of despair, higher and higher . . . My moral descending . . . .  
It was strong. Too strong for me to fight.  
I had to have what was rightfully mine. No more succumbing to be second. No more being the shadow of my full potential.

No more. No more.

I waited for him, knowing he would come. He always came when I called him.  
Such naivety. Who thought that after all this time living in the real world, he would stay innocent?

But then again, he never actually lived in the real world. He lived in his own. Too far for us, the inferior ones, to reach.

There were times in which I wished he would take me with him to whatever place he fled in his mind every time things became too difficult. I wished him to help me with my burden, the one that was dropped on my shoulders even when I cried that I didn't want it. The one that decided without consulting me that I was meant to be eternally good and kind. To be the one they expected me to be, made me promise to be.

That was how I learnt to hate promises.

They are never good for you, they take advantage of you and exploit you in the worst possible way.  
They make you feel guilty. They make you care.  
And I could no longer live with that.

And indeed, he ran to me.  
Stupid of him. He thought I wasn't like the rest of the world, determined to undermine him. To destroy him.

Everyone wanted that from the day he was born. He was nothing but a nuisance in the bigger cosmos. He was never meant to be born.

He was a mistake.

I was not.

Therefore, unlike him, I deserved to live.

I saw his trustful eyes upon me. Oh, this would be fun. Pleasure.

I would enjoy slaying his delicate throat, hearing that hateful voice being torn away, lost in the void that became my existence.

I would love spilling his blood, see it scattered on the ground, morbid, red. Like an animal's blood. Of no one important.

Of the opposite of who he was.

Of what I was.

He sensed that something was wrong. Those damned senses of him would someday bring his downfall. I always told him that.  
He never listened.  
His nose was too high in the sky to listen to anyone but his own voice.

If he had come to me willingly, I would have cut him neatly, there was no need for him to suffer

Perhaps.

Yet he made everything harder when he flinched away at the sight of my knife.

Yes. He has brought it on himself. He had only himself to blame.

"Come closer" my eyes lured him toward me, challenging, mocking. Not so superior now, are we?

He still didn't understand that he needed to run, to whimper. To beg. To do something else but stand there like a sheep brought to slaughter.  
Where's the adrenalin in that?

Then like waking up, he screamed. Pathetic, small, frightened scream.  
But I knew the sky wouldn't bring him salvation. It was too far away. And though he was my father's favorite, I knew that HE was busy right now. Taking care of others but his sons.  
That was, after all, how he lived his entire life. There is a poetic justice in that, that HE rushed to save anyone but his own son. Don't you agree?

He fought. I would give him that.  
After the initial shock, he struggled to maintain his blood inside. But he was only delaying temporarily the inevitable. Even he knew that, I could see it in his eyes.

The death. It was there. It was magnificent in its beauty. That red spot that danced, twinkled in the hour of midday, the sign Satan brands the doomed.

And he was doomed.

We both knew it.

Then, I strake.

Mother always told me to take care of my brother. That in a place in which a man to man is a wolf, we should take care of each other. There would be a time when this is all we would have.

And I mocked her. Not to her face, of course, but inwardly. She still held in those ancient ideals, those rules that we were given and that should have already been expired. It was the way of the old world. We are in the new one.

And then, as I saw the leftovers of my brother lying on the decaying wood, not a breath leaving his mouth, dead, I was angered. She always told ME to take care of him.  
Was I my brother's keeper?

"Goodbye, Wyatt" I whispered to his ear, knowing that he could no longer listen. Knowing that my mission was now done.

Then I held my hand to my brow, my fingers tracing the bleeding gash that my dead brother had done. And smiled.

I was Marked.

_Extracted from The Lost Kingdom: Autobiography_

_By Christopher Halliwell_

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	2. Between Heaven and Hell

I would like to thank all of your out there who encouraged me to continue writing. I know I haven't updated for ages, but it was only your written support that helped me conquer the writing block. Gosh, I hate it when it happens.

zoned-out : Yeap, He is Leo. Sorry if I confused you. Naa, I'm not sorry, that was intentional (evil giggle).

denna5: Wow, thanks for the support. I'll try not to get over confident...

Nemesis' Arrow: Here, chapter delivered as soon as I could (which is unfortunately not nearly as soon as I expected it to be, but. .. it's still something!). Thank you for your review!

And now, stop with the gushing and on to the story!

**CHAPTER 1**

Some say that hell is made of fire. Of Eternal flames that are countering everything, conquering everything, and burning forever. They say that it was like that right from the beginning, it was simply how it was created in order to punish the sinners. Or who they decided were sinners, anyway.

They also say that every beginning has an end, and just like its dawn, one day the fires of hell will consume themselves, and there will be no more misery. No more pain. Happiness.  
Just like the prophets once declared.

But what they didn't take into consideration was that the hearts of gods are made from ice, far from caring.  
Then how could entities that know only coldness and distance create such intense warmth? How would those who want to help none but themselves govern a place for the majority's benefit?

And how can they rule there, in a graveyard of reprobates, and act as if they care when deep inside they do not believe it is them who should be on the throne, when they do not even believe in the place they are ruling. When their hearts are melting every second they spend there, eternal torture- for Them.

How can they sit there all day long and pretend that nothing has happened, everything is alright, and every time they welcome a new edition to their terror kingdom, how can they not be angered of time, that it's running away from them too fast. That they can't control it anymore- it is disappearing from their mighty hands, and even when clutching it tightly, refusing to let it, time does not ask them- it goes on.

And if the gods are asking, how can mere mortals not? Why would they, why would you, not demand time to slow down, to have mercy on your suffering soul, knowing you do not deserve that compassion yet ask for it nevertheless.

For how can you not ask for it? How can you not live with it?

How can you?

How can you look the world in its' eyes, not daring to avert them in weakness as if you do not have a thing to hide, and continue? How can you look at the eyes of your family, the strangers that they have become, and not mourn every moment of waking that they are going away, and you are not doing a thing to stop them?

You are losing them all over again, and just like before you engulfed your heart with a wall of ice, pretending to be a god, you do it again. You wear that uncaring mask upon your face, desperate not to let them see even a tiny crack of emotion emitting from you. For that is what they have taught you, that emotions are weakness. That demons exploit those who are showing them fear. Only, they are not demons.

They are the ones your heart screams in agony to, wishing to let yourself be carried by their arms. They are those you dreamt so long to see, that you wanted so much to envision, to ask for their forgiveness.

And now that you see them, that all your wishes are finally coming true- you let them go away.

How can you?

And you try to breath, to call for them, but their disappointed gaze is hovering above you like a cold cloud of misgiving, the look of those who had seen all the stages of fear and embraced a chilling apathy for the suffering ones. The look of death.

The one you are so familiar with.

You try to tear a scream from your insolent throat, and fail. You summon whatever powers you once possessed to come to your aid, not to abandon you when you most need them, and you swagger to your family's direction, not really caring they are not looking at you. Not anymore.

"Wait!" you manage to say, but this is only a whisper, not one that belongs to a tyrant, to a being so powerful who even forced the Upper Elders to their knees. No, this is the plea of a mere child, of the regretful part of your heart.

The part you forgot.

You know they did not hear you but your heart is still missing a beat when they stop as if sensing something is wrong. Your mother's back is trembling, from- pain? – tears?  
Fear?

You run to her, to calm her, that she doesn't need to be scared of you, you will never hurt her. Then you remember you might, and you stop dead, your legs planted to the ravenous ground.

Now sobbing, you see the vortex being slowly shut down. Time slows down as you see your life flowing away and before you even know what you're doing, you are jumping through it.

Time forgets to breath as you are bent to the ground, eyes sunken and dull, searching for something solid to hang on to, something that will not leave you. Something that will not turn its back to you, even when you wish you could leave yourself.

But the colors and sights are refusing to come into focus, and while you are not used to insolence, you don't have time to be angry with them.

The dead are on your tail.

Run. You have to run.  
They can't reach you. They mustn't.

The roads are endless, and you circle what seems to be a giant mountain of corpses in the thousandth time. There is nowhere to go, only to keep moving forward, to hope that in the next cycle, there will be something that will help you. That those behind you will get tired.

Or that you will get tired, and then- at last- you will be able to breath.  
No, this is not the way things will end. You will fight, even yourself. You keep pushing yourself, on and on. Only a bit more, you beg to your legs, it's near.

And you have no idea what is closing in on giants' steps.

There's something ahead of you, something large and hot and evil.

Fire.

There's so much fire.

You stare at the wavering tongues of fire that are emitting from hell, calculating them, and judging. You are getting closer, and closer- one step after the other.  
Slowly.

The moment you get in, there's a loud thud.  
The door is being closed. You are being buried alive.

You knock on the door, demanding it to be opened, that someone will open it, that. . .you will get free. Because you can't breathe here. You are chocking.

Open the door!

_Please_.

Breathing heavily from the heat and humidity, you force yourself to relax. Hell can't be THAT bad, right? See, the flames are not even so scary now that you are so near them, they look nothing like the dreadful darkness that you were always told hell was. They are comforting, even. Warm, soothing. Their gaze un-judgmental. So unlike all those who are still alive.

But after a while, even you don't believe that lie anymore. You sit there, waiting for the doors to be opened, and being denied. So you keep waiting and wondering, hoping that they will open one day, that when the time is right you will be set free.

In the meanwhile, you try passing the time. Counting sheep, numbers and apocalypse possibilities.

But the doors stay closed.

You sleep and wake up and go to sleep again in the same unbreakable routine you have mastered unwillingly, not even knowing when the routine will ever end. And if it ever will. And this is already a lot like a dream, and isn't. From a dream one can get up, breathe some fresh air and forget it the day after. But this- this is surreal. This pit is holding within it a terrifying feeling, a horrible truth that no matter how much you want you simply can't believe- you can't get out.

_You can't get out._

_You can't get out._

_You can't breath._

The voices are echoing in your ears.

_You can't get out._

_You can't get out._

Laughter of angels is being heard so far away from you, and you almost feel fortunate that you hear it. Because it means you are still alive.

The problem is, after being stuck, of course, that after so long there isn't much to do. All the numbers get jumpy, the sheep are running away from you and envisioning the world come to its end when you're stuck, isn't that fun. So you are left with nothing but you beside you, and the treacherous thoughts. Of how things began to slide, of how you managed to ruin your life, together with others'.

You remember the days when you still had hope for the human race, of acceptance and love. You remember Mom and Dad and all those who are long gone, either by you or higher forces. You remember Bianca, the only one you truly loved but had betrayed you, and her own, for the other side. You remember the last days with her, when she confessed she have had enough with killing, and your own reaction, so soothing and warm.

It's only fitting that you are being condemned in Hell for being warm and nice, to her. If it wasn't for your passive approval, she may have stayed with you. She may have lived.

You may have lived.

So time keeps flowing and you no longer care. Nights and days pass only to never come back ever again, billions of sun rays are being lighted and closed thousands of times, in a another place, to someone else, and you no longer remember them. You don't remember the sun anymore. There is only fire, and heat.

Maybe this is what hell is all about.


	3. The Real World

Hello! I know, I know, I'm such a terrible person. I took my time. But it's honestly not my fault.. this time. My computer crushed, and crushed and crushed again and.. well, it doesn't really interest you, does it?

I would like to thank denna5for her generous review- Thank you for not giving up on me or the story!

Ligia Elena: Wow, a new reader to torment! Thank you so much for your review.. s! My self esteem really climbed for a few days as a result. Poor, Poor world...

Uninformed: The summery WILL make sense... eventually. Please keep reading and send me all those wonderful reviews! (Drooling)

And last but never, ever least- thank you for my beta AK8 who had to sacrifice long hours to sit and fix mymany mistakes!

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**CHAPTER 2**

You've never believed there was such thing as fate. Fate is only an excuse for the soft hearted who refuse to do the task that is required from them. This is the ultimate fiend of all those who have wished for greatness and got stuck in the grayness of life. But more of everything, you abhor fate because it was what put you here in this forsaken place, without asking you.

You are sure that if Mom were here she would have said that in the greater scheme of things this event has probably come to teach you a lesson. To make you a greater person and you should thank the bastards that chased you here. That even if we don't always understand fate it always has a plan. We are just too short sighted to understand everything. The best that we can do is to let time lead us and let ourselves sway with it. Then again, she died from the decent of a plant.  
Talk about irony.

Then she came to the future and changed the course of time that was and that should have been. So the concept of fate is no longer so valid asyou saw that one can change his own destiny. It is not marked by stone, only by a little mark of pencil. Now you only have to find the right eraser and rewrite what you think fits better.

Only this time, it may not be so easy doing it. You're kinda stuck.

"Damn." You kick the walls of the cave when you try, in what seems to be the thousandth time, to open it. You already used everything you could think of to open it- spells, kicking it and even, oh, the shame, 'Open Sesame.' But none seemed to work. None seemed to matter.

And you start to be touched not by an undefined paranoia, but a real fear. The fear that you are not going to get out of here alive.

Ever.

"DAMN!" Now you yell, wanting someone to hear, to help you. "LET ME OUT!"

But there is not even a tiny change.

So you crumple on the cold floor, your arms hugging your knees in a fetus like position. You try to absorb a sense of comfort, this way nothing can hurt you.

But everything stays far too warm, far too lighted, and far too dense. You don't know what to do anymore. Time is running away from you, and you are not powerful enough to stop it, to save yourself.

In a rush of desperation, you laugh. Loud, dull, horrible laughter that you are sure means that you are slowly losing you mind. But you still can't stop it.

When you were a child you never thought that isolation could hurt. In fact, living among a large family you thought this was the best scenario ever. But then the Irony master reared its ugly head, giving you exactly what you have always wanted. And in the way you wanted it, no less. A warm, closed place in which you won't have to talk to anyone, deal with anyone. Where you could just to be yourself for the first time.

So here you were given your dream. And you laugh and moan and laugh again, all in the same time and in the same tune. Never really sure what you are feeling and why you are feeling that way.

You watch the walls, the fire and the air with equal fascination, as if aid can come out of them. Then everything becomes dull again, the pain in your chest widens and you don't care anymore. You don't care if you will get out of here or not. It doesn't even matter anymore.

Suddenly there's a light touch on your shoulder. It's nothing more than a moth movement or a bit of wind but it is whispering to you not to give up. So you take all the pride that you were left with and shatter it on the wall, begging. Only this time, you beg the wind.

"Please," you whisper, your voice is breaking. And to think that once you had been so cocky. Oh, how the mighty had fallen…

"Please, I beg you. Let me go," you plead on you knees. This time not even knowing to whom you direct such a selfish plea, and not even caring. You don't even know who is the strongest that can fulfill it. You then wonder if anyone would help you. Which god you have not yet offended in your brutality? Which merciful entity still holds even the tiniest capability of compassion toward you?

You rock in your place, banging your head in the brick wall again, and again and again. You are seeking for a way out this pain. Maybe you will pass out and upon your waking realize you are free. Maybe you will see everyone and have a chance to make everything better.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

You feel something salty.

Tears.

You are crying now andthere is nothing you can do to stop it. You don't want to, either. There isn't any point to act brave, to hold everything inside, to not let the acidic feelings of failure and fear consume you. No, there is no point at all. Nothing that you fought so hard for matters anymore.

"Ple-ea- ase"

And in the thought that you can't possibly sink any lower, you let completely go. You sob uncontrollably, the tears making rivers and oceans, filling the world in their bitter taste, and your heart. For you cry for everything. For the times you should have cried and couldn't. For those you never thought about in years, who have never spoke a word against you. Yet you never told them how much you loved them, how much they meant to you.

You never looked in their eyes, even once, and said you were sorry. So now, almost a century later, the dam is broken and you can tell the truth. "Mom-da-ad-I'm- so-rr-rryyy!"

Only to them it is too late. You have waited too long to tell them.

It takes hours to let all the tears go. When you're done you feel even emptier than in the beginning. You're drained from every force of decision that once led you and in which you took for granted, and now- is gone.

Through the blur of the tears and despite your swollen eyes, you can still see the fire dancing. And you no longer feel hate or anger, only a wonderful numbness. And you get up, not even knowing to where you are going, but let your body lead you. You are nearing the flames, feeling their warmth and the scent of scorched skin, but nothing makes sense. A heat wave is working through your body, but you don't feel a thing. You just keep walking toward it, like it is nothing but thin air. It can't harm you, nothing can hurt you anymore.

You are your own ghost.

You walk through the flames, your eternal punishment, and then the fire is extinguished. You see its sparks lingering just for a little. Resting before they will have to travel the distance between your heart and the stones that are resting near by. Such fitting analogy.

Then they are dissolving completely. You don't even stop to wonder why you take all of this in such calmness. Why you are happy that it's not so hot here anymore. Why you aren't afraid it's not so dark here all of a sudden and why the doors are being opened.

And just a moment before the world loses every sane attachment of emotion and color, you guess that Mom was probably right after all.  
Maybe this was what your woven fate was meant to be- to lose.

Your hand is clutching the soft sheets that are underneath you. You don't dare opening your eyes, to let go of the comfortable warmth around you. There is a warm blanket around you and you risk a moan of pleasure when your hands are tracing the smoothness of a pillow.

Pillow? Bed?

You open your eyes and let the fresh air wash over you, feeling like a junkie on drugs you can't get enough. There is light all around you, the purest light- sunlight. Not the intense red one you became so familiar with. No, this one is gentler and its essence is freedom.

You let a smile appear on your face and fight with your mind that there is no real reason to wake up. You turn and instinctively cling to the body that is beside you. There is only one woman with that odor. With a content smile, you begin kissing her hands, climbing all the way up to her delicate face, taking in her familiarity.

"Hello princes," you whisper in her ear and give her a quick peck on the cheek to wake her up. You take your time to admire her peacefulness while she's waking. You wait to see the welcoming flutter of her long eyelashes, to be greeted by her eyes. The sight you are so thirsty to see.

In a hurry to rush things up, you tickle her belly gently, knowing there is no way she can resist that. But she stays calm and non- responsive.

"Come on, wakie, wakie." You are descending to kiss her eyes when you stop frozen.

Her eyes are wide open.

"No," you whisper in terror and stumble to get away from the bed. But your legs are being held by the sheets, and you fall on her, a sickly smashing voice is heard. Like bones cracking.

"NO!" you scream, seeing her eyes still fixed on yours. A twisted smile is stretched over her lips, like she's content. She has taken her revenge on you.

"No, this can't be." You shake your head, refusing to accept any of that, and release yourself from the grasp of the sheets. But her fingers are molded inside your hand and you have to tear them away in hurry, her fingernails leaving bleeding marks.

You run to the door, you have to get away. You open it, and there's a skeleton standing there, smiling, with dad's eyes. All its teeth falling one by one as it opens its mouth, and screams, "MUURRDERRRERRRRRRRR!"

You hurry back to the room. Bianca's body is now sitting in the king-size bed you both bought in England years ago, and through the window the moon light is shining, making her bones visible. Then she smiles terribly as well, her hand holding a large glass.

"Wine?" she asks and the glass in changing its color from yellow to red. Blood red.

"Come." She lifts her hand and you are floating toward her. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Too late you realize what is in the glass- poison.

"Cheers," she says and pours the wine forcefully down your throat.

_"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"_

You wake up. You are dripping with sweat and your nails are raw and bleeding from trying to dig into the stone floor.

You take a minute to catch your breath.

Suddenly new flavors and lights are invading your closed irises. At first you try to shoo them, commending them to go away. Everyone always listened to what you had said, why can't they do the same?

When they do not seem to hear any of your colorful insults you are forced to open your eyes to deal with them.

Everything is a blur. Snow and rain are mixed together, they are white. They were so dreadfully, repulsively white. Come to think of it, everything is so shiny.

You would have thought that after all the time that you spent in the reprehensive of hell, you would like a change of environment. . . . but have you really been there? Something inside you rebels that maybe everything that happened was only envisioned by you. Then there weren't months and days that passed, only mere seconds, only a nightmare.

So why are you here?

The memory refuses to come back. You only feel a lingering tickle in the side of your brain, hinting to you that there are secrets there and more than meets the eye. So instead of forcing yourself to remember, you walk in the place you knew for so long. Yet this is so wrong, so different. The colors are mixed, the people are so unlike what you expect them to be, that it hurts. And the air. . . even the air feels unnatural. It has a taste, not like the one you were used to. If you hold it in your mouth you could almost feel something….sweet. Pure.

You glance at the strangers, amazed to see that they are free. Then you remember that there was a time when the people in your home were free too. You feel hate bubbling inside you.

In which way are these people better than your family? From you? What have they done to deserve having the courage to walk in broad day light and dare breathing?

Speaking of which, what is all that day light about? Where did it come from?

And why does it refuse to go away?

"Is everything alright, young man?" A man wearing a colorful suit is coming near you, his expression of great care.

Your heart is racing. You don't know what he wants, what his agenda is, and who he serves. Without thinking, only feeling, you grab the knife that appears in your hand. You push it towards him, right through his heart.

His eyes are gaping and he tries to scream. You don't let him.

"Who do you serve?" you whisper in his ear. If possible, his eyes are becoming wider, not understanding. Whoever the Power is here, he trained his spies well.

You put more pressure on the wound, wanting him to tell you more. But his body is falling to the ground.

Useless.

"Kid! Stop! Police!"

You don't hesitate, you run. You should have known, the Power always has more spies. You must not be captured. You run to a deserted alley and disappear.

Let the so called police try to catch you now.

Even the underworld isn't quite how you remember it. It is dark and cold, and quite frankly reminds you more of your home than the nauseously bright garden that dwelled underneath the ground in your place.

But what is your place, you're not sure anymore. Is it possible that somehow you passed through time, like Adam foolishly tried to do in order to SAVE you?

Ha!

Who was he kidding? All he ever wanted to do was undermine you, to make himself a king. It's a good thing that Wyatt killed him. That way you alone can rule your kingdom.

If you ever find your kingdom.

A nauseous feeling from the pit of your stomach is telling you that you should be careful. There is someone here. Turning abruptly, you try your best not to laugh.

Kyla, the pure Angle on your world, is dressed in black.

She comes to you slowly, purring. She dutifully bows and places her hands on your shoulders. Smiling ,she says, "Hello, Lord Chris. I've been waiting."


	4. New Encounters

_Here is my annoying voice again. But before I'll let you read the next chapter like a good girl, I just wanted to say THANKS to Ligia Elena and Nemesis' Arrow. I couldn't have done it without you! _

_I know my chapters are vague but I promise everything will make sense... eventually. And with this optimistic note- on to the story! _

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**CHAPTER 3**

You come closer to her, confused. A loud alarm in your head is warning you not to come any closer. At least not without knowing more, but that is of no use. You are too close now, too vulnerable.

"That's Lord CHRISTOPHER to you." You are attacking her, knowing all too well the familiar saying that the best defense is offence.

There is something quivering in her eyes, like hurt. However, it is gone before you realize what it truly was and you are not sure you have not imagined it.

Being so close, though it is dangerous, has advantages as well. You can smell the drops of sweat that are falling from her face, even though she ignores them, and the sense of fear that stinks the atmosphere. You can see the matching freckles on her shady skin, one on each cheek, directly in the center. Her forehead is paved with wrinkles that you know only many lifetimes of murder can slit. Her blue eyes that once looked like shining orbs when you still knew where you were are now hollow like the bottom of the Dead Sea. They have seen too much not to be effected and from a reason you are not sure yet you know about, you care.

"What's the matter, forgot?" she ignores you but you decide to let it go. She taunts you by teasing but anger is being built beneath that façade of kindness. Anger ready to come out any minute now, bubbling just beneath the surface. When it finally finds freedom and breaks free…there will be no escape.

You cannot help but to find the oh-so-bitter irony in this. You, the evil ruler, is afraid of Kyla the angel. Something must have gotten screwed up by that dream you had. Maybe a nice metal breakdown or two along the way ...

You try to gather your composure and your lost dignity to attack her again. "Look, I don't know what you're thinking but…." You fail miserably when she disturbs you none- too- kindly.

"You don't know! Dammit Chris, you were supposed to be here four months ago, _four _months! Do you have any idea what this does to your status? It ruins it! Everything that we have worked so hard to accomplish is now ruined!"

"What?" you growl in anger and disgust. As if you would ever plan anything with an Angel, as if they were trustworthy!

By only a split of a second, you cross the distance between the two of you, your hand clutching her throat. This time you do not even bother with a knife; that would be too quick. No, she has to die in pain. Insolence must be weeded out.

"Take That Back!"

She struggles to break free, her eyes mirroring hurt and betrayal. There is so much lost trust in those eyes that you wonder in whom she was foolish enough to place so much faith, and who had the power to shatter it.

You let a bit go, knowing the exact quantity of air that can suffice a coherent thought for talking, but not to make plans to resist you. You are not her; you do not place trust that easily.

"Let me go, Chris! This is not funny!" she whimpers, rage, pain and incredulity are mingling in her voice.

"This was never supposed to be funny. I would have killed you on the spot if it wasn't for my brother's lame sentiment towards you!"

With distaste she exclaims, "Your brother? For crying out loud, Chris, he's a baby!" Then her eyes are being lit as if she has something figured out, and you are not sure if that is a good thing or a great time for her to run.

"Chris," she started talking again, using that awful nickname with terrible intimacy, and her throaty voice is turning soft, almost unbearable. "What is the last thing you remember?"

You struggle for a minute with what to say, not sure about the answer yourself. Your eyes are loitering around the dark cave, examining the torch marks on the wall and the huge blackened table that is right in the middle of it. Then your eyes are lying on something blue on the table, a flower.

Ignoring her, you walk toward it, enchanted. Forget me not.

Suddenly a far away memory is swallowing you, a memory that you wish never to remember. Or to forget.

"_**Do you love me?" she asks you. Her brown eyes are twinkling, making her shine. **_

"_**Yes" you whisper back, knowing that even though you have never before known what love is, now you do. You look at her face, the angelic skin and those soft lips, and are being tempted to say more, much more. Nevertheless, there is a wall inside your heart that does not let you do so, yet you hope that when she looks at you - she knows.  
**__**Just like you know she loves you as well, even though she has never put that in words.**_

_**The waterfall is trickling behind you and the wind that passes in the forest is calling your name, but none of that matters. Only to be beside her, to look at her, to smell her essence, and to know she is real . This is what matters.**_

_**Seeing fear filling her eyes, you curse the Elders for destroying your life and hers. If it were not for them, she would have been happy. Free. And you both would have never needed to hide in this self-created heaven; the one you both know is not real. It is merely a fragment of the world that has not survived and was brought back by spells. **_

"_**I won't leave you, ever. I promise!" you whisper to her ear. You know she needs to hear that declare .You need to hear it, too.  
**__**You will not leave her to rot in heaven. She is far too precious and none who would think otherwise would live long enough to execute his or her plan.**_

"_**I don't think we have a choice, Chris. They are far too strong for any of us. And I…miss them. And I miss the old me sometimes. Do you remember the old me?"**_

"_**Yes" you say and add nothing. For there is nothing left to insert. She had once been innocent, an angel. Now she is the figment of you.**_

"_**So...I've decided I want to be that person again. I want to believe and to help.  
**__**Do you hate me?"**_

"_**No. I will never be able to hate you." You hate yourself because the words you are speaking are true. What kind of a world are you creating that the one you love the most will be against you? For a moment, nothing is clear and then everything is.  
**__**It is a world where Bianca is happy. You need nothing more than that.**_

"_**I will never be against you," she says as if reading your mind. "Ever. I love you. You know that. I just have to find another way for them to understand, my old way- by peace. I'll be back, my love. Soon." She kisses you, her lips warm, human, and wanting. **_

"_**I'll be waiting," you try saying but tears are choking your throat. You try to force them away, but they are too strong. You give up; she deserves to be cried upon.**_

_**She whispers back, "Don't forget me." **_

_**Out of nowhere, a blue flower appears, enchanted to stay alive forever. Like your love. **__**She gives it to you with tears that are betraying her smile. Then she shatters the beautiful image that surrounds you both disappearing to heaven.**_

That was also the same flower you put on her grave. You could not forget her but wherever she had gone to, she would need the reminder more.

"How could you?" you shout and throw Kyla to the wall by telekinesis forcefully. "You stole it from her grave! You were her friend!"

"Chris! I think you need to relax. I don't understand what you are talking about!" she shouts but you hear nothing. Her voice is miles away, and so is her pain. Only the flower exists, a mocking signal of your failure as a husband.

You do not care which righteous reasons she must have had. All that you care about is taking that too quivering voice and shutting it up forever. And to take all the pain and make it gone and to remember nothing, but HER.

"STOP!" She calls out when your hand is forcing her windpipe close, endangering her life. That is exactly what you want to do, to press, and never to stop. "You gave it to me!"

You let a bit go, hesitating, but then resume with your mission- ending all that threatens Bianca's memory. She is bluffing. You never knew her that well and even if you had, there is not chance you would have given her the most precious thing of all.

"NO! You… you said that you needed to avenge her, the one who killed her, that you would be back."

Without even wanting to, your curiosity is peaked. Compelled to understand you bark, "When, where, who?"

"When, four months ago when you said you would be gone only for a day." Now that she is away from your threat it seems like she found her courage once again, "You said you would help me then."

"Help you?"

She turns crimson and replies with lowered eyes, "I may be only a demon, Chris, but I still have feelings. Don't mock me, not on this."

"So I said that I would avenge her?" you ask, trying to find out what she knows. You are sure for a second that she is bluffing again. The fear in her eyes and her hope is real, even she cannot be that good of an actor, and she does not lie. So how… how can it be possible? You know well that the one who is responsible for her death is no longer among the living and is out of reach from your purifying revenge. After all, you have searched for years trying to hunt him down, but now she says that he can be found…but how?

"Yes, with the help of your family."

Family? But….

You stare at her, the curving of her figure showing clearly despite the deceit of darkness. There is a flame giddying behind her, making her look even more intoxicating and inviting. You try to turn away, yet the temptation she is offering is too priceless. She is telling you that you can defeat the one you never thought you could.

The ultimate powers are about to be yours, and you are willing just for a little while to abandon your suspect and to listen.

Formulating plans and preparing venoms introduce you to a harsher reality than you thought this place was. You have not yet asked her how she knows of what she is offering, what she is gaining, or more importantly- what you are losing. However, there is time for all these questions. In fact; time is the one thing that is on your side this time. So you let yourself breathe, in and out, out and in, as if the world itself cannot undermine you.

And you believe.


	5. Beneath a Diamond heavens

_Finally my computer came back to the land of living. Let's all encourage him! (Doing a silly dance, realizing what I'm doing and stopping immediately. The world says thanks.) _

_I would like to say thanks to Ligia Elena for her encouragement, I hope you didn't gave up on this story already. _

_denna5- I hope you'll like this chapter as well. It's a bit sad (aren't all of my chapters tend to be like that?) but I had to write it to tie things up. Please keep reading! _

_Nemesis' Arrow__- don't worry, I don't think I'm actually capable of revealing everything quickly since most of the time I don't have idea what's going to happen. Don't you simply hate it when the characters come to life on their own and make you write things that were absolutely not part of the original plot? Yeah, well, I gave up fighting ... _

_And as always, how can I ever stop thanking shad whisper for beta-ing that story! And now- on to the story!_

* * *

**CAHPTER 4**

The ancients called midnight the time of lost souls. They thought this is the time when a soul is being judged at the edge of a new day and found worthy, at least until the next night. They figured that as long as one lived it meant that he means something to the world and that in the bigger scheme of things, he was important, vital, and his sins not as discriminating as of those who died.  
You would have punched their righteous faces, if you could have. They were wrong and did not even know that. They did not even care that the ways of the world are not as full of justice as their mind's seen. They do not realize that whoever lives is the one who is the least worthy of life.  
This is why most of your family died. They were far too valuable to this world. They had shifted the balance too much to the Greater Evil to worth being alive. This is why your father is the only one who stayed alive. This is not because he is a Dark Lighter and as such is immortal but that he perished long ago. The afterlife had rejected him and left you to be stuck with him.  
More than everything else, this is why you are still alive. Not because you deserve living or because you fought harder against the angel of death but because fate, whatever scrawny and over-sentimental thing that it is, decided to abandon you upon the land of the living.  
If you cannot punch the ancients then in times like these you know that hurting fate would do just fine.

Yet you cannot do a thing about it nor stop the feelings of hurt and even maybe guilt.  
So you shake all those disturbing thoughts from your mind and emerge from the world as an empty person, a shell of a being that with the right substance can even hpe to live.

You do not know which force drives you to the graveyard but you find yourself here, loitering aimlessly in the white city of the dead. Even here everything is white, but unlike the purity of the world outside in this dying sphere the peacefulness and silence feels right.

Only, you do not want silence. Silence brought your bother to your claws, it led Mom and your aunts to their death and false trust brought Bianca to this cold place. They are all dead, as all those who matter often are.

A shred of a leaf is dancing around you, trying to tempt you to take it and grind it into even smaller bits. Although, even you know that everything has limitations, that every small thing has smaller ones so tearing up the leaf will bring you nothing.

Nevertheless, you open your palm to capture it. But you hesitated too long. It had already floated away in search of other keen viewers who will appreciate the gift it offers.

You will not let it leave.

Something in your subconscious knows that it is idiotic, that chasing after leaves is not a job for a king. Maybe it is a job for a lunatic but not you, a king.

However, you have never listened to yourself very carefully and you do it all the same, wishing you could grow wings and follow it to the kingdom of the sky.

Yet you are only mortal and even as you run, you see it taking off and escaping out of your reach just like all dreams do.  
You have never given up on your dreams and you will not give up on this. You keep running in the graveyard while random stones rub and scratch your legs.

You fall.

A heavy stone, Prue's, is blocking your descend to the cold ground of the dead.

You remember Prue and momentarily you are being reminded with all the stories Mom use to tell you about her. She used to tell you how much she missed her sister.  
Already back then, you remember in that familiar flash of nostalgia, you hated Prue for doing that to Mom.

There is a piece of paper on the tomb, held to its place with a large stone. You take the badly wrinkled page out of its prison and lose yourself in the writing.

_**You died today or was it last year or 23 years before? **_

_**I do not know the answer to that. All time seems to stretch before me, an Einsteinian mischief that the world is playing upon me. Something that is satanic and almost as horrible as the cruel joke that took you away.**_

_**And you know what the worst part is? You never even had a funeral. Not even a tomb to give those who miss you a place to cry on. A place to talk to you and hold on to the well informed superstition that you actually hear. Knowing that this is all that it is- a superstition. And doing it anyway. To do all of that because you mattered, Matter, because letting go is not as easy as you probably expected it to be.**_

_**Because I didn't really know you. The real you who hid under the mask of sarcasm and fearlessness, the one you only let me see a second before you died.**_

_**And I cannot handle it. Because it shouldn't be so hard. You did not die, damn it! You are here now, with me, where you truly belong. Here were you crawling next to your brother. And I know that in time I will see you. I already see you now, but it is not the same. It is not the same.**_

_**Your father grieved for you, long and hard. Those were dark days.  
**__**You have had your differences with him, I am no fool to think that there will not be any to come, but he loved you so much. A parent's love is unconditional, my Chris. How could you not know that?**_

_**Yet we both know that you are not truly gone. It makes it easier for him to move on, to keep believing in the greater good and have a sense of meaning. But I can see that he, too, can feel the void when looking at you when you are not able yet to speak. And you are not annoying, pushy and arrogant. You are not you yet and I do not even know if I want you to become you.**_

_**Because it will mean that your life will be hard and force you to look at the world with skepticism, but also with that faith in the inner good in everyone. To believe in it so much that it makes me cry. But I know that if you will be you then that will mean that you have been lost. And I can't have that. This would be an unforgivable injustice to your memory.**_

_**But it will also be if you don't become you. Because then the world will also miss knowing you. It will gain a different you, yeah, one who had happy life and much to contribute to it, but then you will disappear to that forgetfulness nothing that swallows those who were never loved.  
**_**_Only, you were loved. So very much that it's hard to breathe without you. By me and your father and aunts. We are your family and we love you so much, Chris. How could you leave us?_**

_**We loved you even when we didn't know it was you. We loved you even when we hated you the most; when you screamed and pushed, were bossy and neurotic. We loved you even when we didn't listen, when we were too lazy to go and hunt demons, or to hear your internal cry. We loved you, my dear boy. I love you, and you did not even know that.**_

_**Everyone tells me it is time to move on. Phoebe met this new guy, Paige is regaining hope and your father has stopped feeling guilty. He has stopped moving in the house like a ghost of his former self; his eyes glazed and thinking things that I could not guess, things that made it impossible for him to sleep or for me to stop being scared.  
**__**Hush, do not worry, he is all right now. It has been months now.  
**__**The world moved on.**_

_**So why is it that I cannot move on? Why do I wake up every night at exactly 3:34 in the morning as if waiting for something to happen? Why can't I stop jumping from every noise and every squeal the wind is making?  
**__**You were like that, I remember. You were always cautious, always on full alert and on your toes. I didn't realize before the circumstances that must have made you the way you were. I was not interested in realizing back then. You didn't matter to me because you were not family.  
**__**Things would have been so different if I only knew back then what I know now.**_

_**You have no idea how many times I wanted to take that god-awful spell that we made and to turn back time. Back to when you were not "were" and when you were alive. So I could hold you and tell you that we know, to hear you forgive us and to say that we forgive you, and to actually mean it this time.  
**__**To cry with you and to tell you that everything is going to be all right, that we will stop Adam and save you.**_

"**_Everything will be better, Mommy is here". I want to tell you that, to whisper those soothing words to your ear, and to actually believe that everything is going to turn out alright. Except there is not a you to deliver those words to. Besides, I know that coming back would not accomplish anything. Because you would not trust us, just as we never trusted you.  
_**_**So I repeat these words to the ears of the wide cosmos. Maybe it will hear and take my words to you, to wherever you are.**_

_**Wyatt is crying.  
**__**He had a major emotional swing in the last couple of months, just like the rest of us. He is crying a lot and calls Kis repeatedly.  
**__**I guess he misses you, too.**_

_**I don't know anymore how to comfort him. Nothing that I tried worked. He just keeps crying days and nights as if he knows that something I wrong. That you're gone forever. It is as if he can feel that I don't know what to do about him. That his mommy is helpless. And that I cannot look at him anymore without seeing the other him. The other him that is an evil tyrant and who will eventually end the world as we know it.**_

_**Leo says that it's not really him who did it and that it was a different world, which we can prevent. After all, we did not know at the time that he turned that way only because of us. All just because we did not think that you were powerful enough. That we wronged you once again.**_

**_It is easier for Leo because he didn't see the other Wyatt. He didn't have to see the true malice in our son's eyes, and the hands- those horrible ghostly hands that we couldn't prevent. And that Wyatt will suffer yet again.  
_**_**He did not hear him talk. He did not hear you pleading for Wyatt to stop fighting. He did not experience any of that. How dare he talk?**_

_**I cannot deal with having an evil son any more than I can handle that you died. And now you said that I am going to have another son coming, and that from whatever reason I will call him Adam. And he will be born blind and will be the ruler of the underworld.  
**__**And I know I suppose to love him. Because he will be my son.  
**__**But how can I love a stranger who killed you, whom I loved? How can I love both of you, the three of you, in the same time, to care for you all and not to be driven crazy?**_

_**How can I be a good Mom to both sons who will be monsters? Even though heaven knows that I love Wyatt, how can I not be tempted to let go? To just have an abortion and not have Adam at all. And by doing so changing the course of all time, doing the thing that scared you the most and in the end killed you.**_

_**How could you die, Chris, without telling me how I ought to deal? How to make the wrong right again without messing it up again.  
**__**I need you more than in any other time that I needed you. Not for your demon knowledge or which threat is about to rise- but for YOU.  
**_**_I need you to come from whatever place that you have gone to and come back to me. I need you to tell me good things about Adam so whenever I think of infanticide again, I need you to help me see reason. To help me love him like he deserves.  
_**_**I need you to be my son more than being my Whitelighter. I need to hug you, to see you. And to feel that you are real.  
**__**I need to say goodbye. Because I can't manage it anymore.**_

_**I know I should be strong for the sake of our family, the future you and Wyatt, Adam, your father and aunts, the magical community and even the whole freaking world. Because they need me. But I need you.**_

_**After Prue died, I couldn't go on anymore. Then Grams came and told me that life is a test and that what does not break you makes you stronger.  
**__**But I am now too badly broken to be strong, my dear boy, because I can't live without you anymore. **_

_**Love,  
**__**Mom **_

You crumble the note and throw it away on the ground. This woman is talking about another Chris. The fact that he had brothers with the same names as yours is purely coincidence, it must be.  
After all, you are alive and even _if_ you died there would be no one who would mourn for you. You are a king and royalty was doomed to be alone.

Then the wind suddenly snatches the note away and it flies after the leaf, toward forgetfulness.


	6. Who Wrote this History, anyway?

At last, this chapter _was_beta-ed!  
As always, I grant thanx for all those who reviewed me, may you all live happily ever after and review my fics regulary. for Ligia Elena- thank you for taking the time to review each and every chapter, I really do feel honored.  
For Tigerdrake- unfortunately, even after he will find out that he's not in _his_plane, the world won't be happy and peachy for him. In fact, I can almost assure you that it won't. But it may even happen. I don't know. Stragest things have happened.  
Nemesis' Arrow- Woo! You really think that I write well? I'm blushing now. Do stop the praising... ok, you can continue now.. ;). I tried finalizing a plot for my story but I don't even delude myself that I'll stick to it... still, general plots are good even if one's not using them, right?  
denna5- The BEST angst writer? Now that's a compliment! Gotta say that I was afraid that I overreacted with the letter, but I'm glad that you liked it. And here- more angst!

* * *

**Chapter 6**

You are stretched over a large couch with a warm fire dancing behind you and the howling of the wind becomes almost quiet, untraceable by your ears. This is ironic that here, in the underworld, you have found home. Even though you ruled both the upper and under worlds in your time, you have never fitted. You have never belonged.  
You sink in further into the softness of the couch while hearsay thoughts are attacking saying that maybe this is what it's all about.

Maybe you aren't meant to rule everything because only heartache and loneliness comes from it. Can it be that uniting the people is the answer to the emptiness of your heart?

"You look content." Kyla's voice is floating in the air, mingling with the sound of the raindrops outside. Her voice is too far away and thus cannot harm you. Your mind is also telling you that there is no need to hide here. And you now that your mind's voice is telling the truth, she wouldn't hurt you. She wouldn't even cross you or stab you in the back like so many others had. She's safe. But it is only because she needs you and she knows you need her just the same. You're equal, you and her. But it's ok because now you don't have to make the hard choice all by yourself while pretending they are small and easily made. You don't have to be strong and call for obedience all the time. It's okay to exchange ideas. It's okay not to know everything, not to be God.  
For the first time in what seems to be forever nothing matters but to let go.

"Yes," you admit sleepily, refusing to let the walls close around you again. Not yet. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Your mission hasn't been accomplished yet. I thought you'd be irritated that it needs to be postponed because of the damn weather."

You surprise yourself with saying, "I thought so too." But from a reason you cannot pronounce, or even to allow feeling, it doesn't seem too crucial anymore. You can wait another day, even another 2 or 3 weeks.  
You can wait forever. What's the rush?

"You're not getting cold feet on me, are you?" She comes closer and despite her light teasing tone, you can hear that she's serious. And you know she's right, you've worked far too hard on this to throw it away because of an ephemeral sentiment. No, you clear your head decisively. At the first sign that the storm is calming down you'll do it. This is what you've wanted right from the beginning. This is what has to be done.

So why all of a sudden is there a load of bricks sinking in your stomach when you think of going out to the cold and to the family that loved you but pushed you away? The family that rejected you, questioned you, never accepted you as you were, and who compared you and found you lesser. The same family that you loved, rejected, and killed cold heartily without even iota of compassion toward them.

Now for the sake of past times, good times and better times you summon the same strength that allowed you to do what you had to back then- the one that gave you the power to be strong. But now you need it to hide your Super Ego the one that knows that it's hard to leave not because of the warmth and not because of what awaits you outside but what will come after that. When you will return to the place you once called home, _your_ home, and your kingdom. But now you don't know how you could have been so arrogant to consider both as yours.

"I'm up to it. Really." You plead to her with your eyes to leave you alone, to understand, and believe you. You want her to leave, right here, right now. You want her to leave you alone. You need her to run away from here. From you. Because you are surprised to discover that, you don't want her to get hurt. Even though she's replaceable- just one demon among many and you don't care about her- you want her to live. Not for herself but for you because if she lives, maybe you will have a chance as well.

Maybe there is a trace of your inner struggle for she comes and sits beside you. She's not going away or running away to escape from you. Her fate is sealed.  
She has chosen Death.

"Are you ok?" she asks you. You're glad that she didn't use your name, your title. You don't want the notion of what you have to lose to be clear just yet. You want to forget, only for a while. Only until you are forced to remember that you were once a Lord, a ruler, and that this is who and what you are. But just for now, it's ok to forget.

You smile warmly. She didn't have to care. "Yeah, I'm fine."

You study her figure, drinking in her dimples and the gleaming eyes, making her beauty a part of you. A thought strikes you: you can love her. It will not be hard not a bit. You can be happy, truly happy. The loneliness- she can break it!

Then she turns her head and the moment is gone. The color of her eyes aren't right, they don't have the stars that Bianca's had. The hair is wrong. The mouth, even that soft mouth, isn't in the right shape. It's too big, too pressed, and her teeth too sharp. Nothing will suffice in your search for perfection.

"Why are you doing this, Kyla? Why are you helping me?" You ask her this because you are genuinely curious of her motives. But it's also a slight manipulation to take your mind off the trail it is heading towards.

"Why?" She lets out a short, ugly sneer that you guess is suppose to be a laugh. "I sometimes forget that you're not from around here, that you don't know."

"Tell me anyway. I won't judge you, I promise." You take her hand and cover it with yours, your palm tingling with anticipation.

"Judge me? As if you have the right!"

"I'm sorry," You lower your head humbly. "I didn't mean it to sound that way."

There is understanding in her eyes. "I know, I guess I'm just so used to being criticized. I'm not an upper demon, you know so my opinion is never important." Then her voice drops with defeat. "You probably have no idea what I'm talking about."

"No, I don't your right. I only had a brother who was the Twice Blessed that everyone bowed down to!"

"I wasn't fair. I guess I find it hard to believe that we could have something in common. I've always seen you more on the side of good and always fighting me. It's . . . weird to see you here. Like this."

"I guess but I'm not the me you knew anymore. In fact, I guess the me you knew was probably more like Wyatt and his _self- righteousness._"

"You loved him." She observes, not being fooled by the mocking tone you took when you spoke of him. You don't think she's right. You killed him, after all.

But it wasn't because you didn't love him but because he became a traitor. He turned to the side of good and he had to be punished.

"Tell me about him." She leans on you, her head resting on your shoulder. You hold onto the image of intimacy and open your heart.

"Wyatt, he… tried to make things better. He even tried founding schools and free meals for the lower demons. He believed it would end the rivalry. But... we're demons, right? We're not like that."

"I don't understand. What he was trying to gain?" Her face twisted in the same confusion yours did when he had presented his ideas to you. You do not know why you are surprised that she reacted the same way you did. After all, you both are demons who believe in ulterior motives and sneaky ways.

"Neither could I, in the beginning." You find it easy to confess knowing that she will not hold your ignorance against you. She was weird like that, a demon with a purpose. Mother must be rolling in her grave.

Or maybe you weren't even thinking instead letting the words come out without restraint. He was your brother and even if he was weird at times, always standing out with his ideas and mild curiosity, he deserves to be talked about. He deserves to matter.  
Catching her questioning glare, you continue, "But he was weird like that. Didn't believe in the Greater Evil and all those things we all fight for. He wanted to make our lives _better_. I guess that in his own way he was trying to make his life better as well."

"Come on he was the twice blessed child! What didn't he have in life that he wanted to make better?"

"Family I think." You let only a minor pang of guilt be evident on your face. Carefulness never harmed anyone. Yet, talking about your descend brother like this, remembering him, it lights something in your heart that you thought was long forgotten. So you let all the mushiness wash over you. You are entitled to have one moment of weakens on one stormy day, aren't you?

"He never really fitted in. Or maybe he really didn't try hard enough. You know what it is like when you always have an innocent to find, witches to fight and the whole living in the Upper World… we cared about each other but… it's harder."

"I know what you mean." She submerged further into the couch, letting it engulf her entirely. "When my brother was alive we used to go places: meet other demons; try to think of better ways, new ways, to furnish our lair; new schemes to dominate the world; releasing the source. We always did those things together.  
Those were good days."

"What happened?"

"Like you said- we're demons. We're not huggy-feely kind of creatures. We don't like consistency. We need change. We need power.  
So my brother wanted to make a name for himself. You know what it's like. The fool," hiding her hands in the shadow of her lowered head she chuckles nervously, "he went to the Charmed Ones and feigned friendship with one of them. Jeremy, he called himself."

"I remember him. Mom froze him." You smile at the memory of those rare Saturday nights when you all sat around a full table and simply talked. Mom mentioned Jeremy once she said she was sorry that demons nowadays weren't as easily killed.  
But you will most certainly keep that fact to yourself.

You know deep down that you should be angry but her brother paid with his life for going after your family. Besides, it is not your family she is talking about. Yours was different, less naïve. Mom was onto him in 2 days. And you can kinda understand his motives. A powerful name is a valuable thing in the Upper World. How else did the Charmed Ones become so infamous?  
How else did you?

"I'm sorry," you say while putting your hand on her shoulders knowing first hand the pain of losing a loved one.

"That's ok," she pretends bravery. "I'm over it already. It's just like you said, I didn't give him many chances to be a good brother to me. Not that he tried too hard. Still maybe it would have changed things."

"It wouldn't have." You try to console her yet your hand leaves her shoulder. You wouldn't want her to get the wrong idea, after all. "Wyatt tried that. He played the peacemaker for a whole month before he broke down. Demons still died no matter how many forgave each other. So, he found himself a new project and founded the inter-dimensional library. Of course, this was predictably a failure."

"The what?"

"Inter-dimensional library. You don't have one here? Weird. It's a sort of place where both sides come to borrow magic books and talk with each other. Killing's not allowed. But since when can demons and witches be in the same room together?"  
You never believe that it would work, not even for a second. And then you met Bianca...

"They ended up blaming each other for a book theft and raided the magic books in less than a week."

You know there's a sickly, glowing smile glued to your lips but you cannot help it. The whole family thought it was hilarious.  
Of course, they were less than amused when they found out the source of all those books, but that's another story altogether.

Personally, you always thought that Wyatt was happy to give up the library. That way he could help individuals and not baby-sitting fire starters at every corner.  
Only, helping wasn't something real, something that would actually matter. We're demons. We need to fight among ourselves and ignore rules. But Wyatt, he never lived in the real world. He created Utopia in his mind and put the world in the same frame. Never caring or considering that it didn't fit, that the world wasn't a nice place. That demons don't help demons. Because everyone have their own interests, their own fate.  
Just the way it should be.

As if reading your mind, she says hesitantly, "He sounds like an interesting person."

Which is, of course, another way of saying that he was insane and his ideas were scandalous. You told him that yourself once when you still believed in talking. Hell, even Adam tried to talk him out of it. Still to hear someone who didn't know him, who didn't _deserve_ knowing him talk of him that way lights protectiveness inside you that you didn't even know existed.

You turn your head against hers not meeting her eyes afraid that she will find the lie in them. Only, maybe this is not a lie after all. "Yeah, he was. I think he took that trait from Adam. They were very special people. After all, evidence does claim that Adam came back to _save_ me."

An amused grin is crossing over her beautiful exterior. "Here you came back to save Wyatt."

"I did?" You glower in surprise wishing you could meet yourself, give some tips and slap your face really _really _hard.

"Yeah, you said he was _turned_ as a child and that you needed to save him."

"Did I?" Oh, the layers of irony…. "Is that why you trust my family here to help?"

"Busted. After all, you died on them. They probably feel really guilty. It's a guarantee they'll welcome you with open arms." She smirks slightly but her words are turning into a mumble in your ear. Oh, god the **letter**!

Mom wrote it. She really misses you here.

You avert your eyes not willing to meet Kyla's just yet, processing the astonishing news.

She loved you in this dimension. She missed you.

Does that mean that YOUR mom loved you, too?


	7. Thresholds

Another reposted chapter because it is now beta-ed!Hurray to Shadowhisper!  
Thanks for your reviews! You guys aregreat!

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**Chapter 6**

You wander aimlessly in the noisy streets, looking for interesting locations while in the process trying to figure the abandoned whereabouts of your heart. It's been awhile since you were so free to simply be you- not Lord Chris, not the mythological son of the Charmed Ones or the one who caused his brother's death. No, you can simply be- Chris. Plainly yourself.  
And you like it. Doing nothing, thinking about nothing. But you know it can't go on like that. Winter has already passed without you even noticing.

You see snickers and doubts becoming to rise among your followers, and you doubt yourself. Can you do it?  
Do really you want to?

You know you have to. But it's hard. You don't want to die.  
You've never wanted to. Nevertheless it seems to be your ultimate goal, the only thing to which your life is heading. The only thing that can bring you down.

When you were a kid, you heard your mom's swearing that you have some sort of a death wish. And they were worried about you.  
They shouldn't have. After all, you are the only one from your family who managed to stay alive.

Not that you expected to. You never thought you will be the last Halliwell alive. You never though you will be the reason for being the last one. Somehow, that doesn't comfort your conscience.  
From wherever it came.

You will never forget the day that brought you down. The day that sometimes, when you have a few minutes of peace, you think of and wonder how your life would have been if you hadn't made that mistake so long ago. If you stopped and thought for just a tiny moment that when you slew him, the rest of your family was destined to be next.

There was time when you were ashamed that you were the ender of your family. That what outside forces could not do for centuries, you have made in one well planned tactical attack. But history always teaches you that empires are falling from the inside, and in the empire that was called Halliwell, you were the sinner.

But that's ok now. It doesn't bother you so much anymore. You even found a few very convincing arguments in favor of your actions, ones that can soften the impact of the guilt, that damned feeling inside you that no matter how potions and spells you have tried, it simply never went away. It was there to stick. To stay forever like a brand on your heart. Just like the mark on your forehead, that treacherous sign that doomed everyone and everything you cared for.

You wish you will someday cease to remember what you have done. You wish you will someday no longer wish to forget. You wish that you will someday remember that this is where all began, and by living you are desecrating further the dead. You wish. . . you wish you could wish just one more time before even that lonesome flame will go forever.

But you know that this is nothing more than a lie, something you want to believe in. need to believe in, even, maybe. It's easier to feel that way; it's just how you're supposed to be feeling. Guilty. Yet as you play that awful scenario over and over in your mind, the horror pictures are passing too vividly in front of your eyes, the guilt is abandoning you. And you smile.  
This is when you know that you are not worthy of redemption. You never were.

And this is fine. You were never a real believer of the Ultimate sacrifices that your entire family worshipped every time they sent another lower demon to do their dirty work, and watched him die.

Despite yourself you smile when the memory of fighting the Source of all Good is evading your thoughts. Ha, those were days…

In fact, that's the only battle you remember. The only battle worth remembering.  
After all, it did kill Aunt Phoebe.

You've always thought it was better that way. She was going soft. She fell in love with The Source, an angel!  
You're sure that the rest of your family felt the same way, only diplomacy made them hide their true feelings. She has been a bad name for all demons. She got attached.  
And was vanquished by the source of her affection.

Well, whatever can be said about this world, and you do have a lot to say about the sickly white that rules it, it does peaks your curiosity.

After all, if Aunt Phoebe hadn't fall in love with Cole, she would have been alive. Paige wouldn't have met you all. And evil had a fighting chance. You wouldn't have to run all the time, to hide.  
Ad then maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't have to spend the rest of your life trying to give evil a chance, maybe then Wyatt wouldn't have turned good and Adam wouldn't have betrayed you. Maybe they both would have been alive today.  
If it wasn't for Aunt Phoebe.  
Maybe Bianca would have been alive.  
Maybe.

So you take a big breathe and as the night falls, hiding all intentions from the eyes of the world, you emerge from hell. Because even Satan cannot dwell in the land of sinners forever. New souls have to be collected.

You reach there, the outside, and you wonder where you are going from here.  
There could be said a lot of things about life, but one thing it isn't- boring. It has the tendency to come back at you in the most impropriate time and throw something at you to make you feel better. Or worse.  
What it also tends to frustratingly do is to make up its mind about things, and make you do them. Throw elevators in your way to prevent you from going to darkened allies when you are not needed there. And you're not joking about it.

It has a way that you hope many times that human beings had- to make even the most casual things feel important. Coming home, for example. What can be more natural?  
Except, it's not.

You know that you have to pass their doorstep, but something is stopping you. Maybe a little signal from the world. And you want to take it, want to so much, but then necessity comes and bangs it ugly head to show you the reality, and you are met with no choice. None whatsoever.  
Great.

Being a tyrant has a lot of advantages. For starters, you get to do whatever you want. You weren't really the rules-follower type, so that sat quite nicely on you. In fact, that's one of the parts that drove you to the throne in the first place. But every side has a downside, and the one with tyranny- you're not used of hesitance. Of doubts.

You do what you want to do, and if you woke up in the morning and decided that sector 8 needs to be eliminated because they didn't sell you a toffee- so be it. But now, you don't have legions anymore that would do whatever you tell them to. Or at least, not yet.

Eventually you will, when you come home. Well, the future. Your real home. But until you could do that, you will first have to pass that damn doorstep to your old house. God, it's mocking you. You can feel it

Can one kill a doorstep?

What about a doormat?

Inhaling deeply, cursing the universe and promising yourself that you will kill decently someone when you're over with it, you knock on the door.


	8. Ambiguity

_Wow, I actually managed to write another chapter. And it didn't even take me a month...  
Anyway, thanks for **denna5**who reviewed and **Ligia Elena**, who's alwaysthere to tell me when I make mistakes. _

_**It came to my intention that though I didn't mean to offend anyone, I maybe have. So for all of you who got offended from my stupid joke theprevious A/N (the one that asked people not to be lazy and to review) - my sincere apologies. That was not my intention at all. **_

_As always, my deepest gratitude goes to my beta **Shadowhiper**, who after many bumps and problems managed to check this chapter and made it actually readable. _

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**Chapter 7**

The deep sound scatters around, echoing and enveloping the entire house, spreading through the whole neighborhood. It can be heard in the entire world. And the beats of your heart- they are almost as loud. You are sure that anyone near you can hear it. How can they not when the sound is too loud even to your ears?  
You try to inhale deeply hoping it will stop the erratic beating of your heart. But it doesn't. The expectation is too much even for you to bear. You haven't seen them for so long that you are almost afraid you will not recognize them or that they will not recognize you. And the essence of your plan is for them to recognize you. Well, the other you.

Nobody answers the door. You berate yourself over the growing fear. You probably just didn't knock loud enough.

Knocking again, waiting again. Knocking and waiting, waiting and knocking. You are becoming desperate, not caring anymore if the neighbors will hear. You want them to open. You want to scream, "This is your son at the door! Open the door! Please, I want to come home."

But you know that this is a useless wish. Even when you are inside this home, it will not be _your_ home. Then again, even your home never really belonged to you. You were the one to ruin it.And in this world, only good intentions must pass through the doorstep of the Halliwells, and you have everything but .

The hours grow dim and weary while you stand there for far too long. Given up on knocking anymore, there is no point, and just staring at the door, wishing you could burn a hole in it, to burn something.  
To drown the world.

Nevertheless, you have a façade to maintain and must control yourself. For now you must suffer the cold and staring of neighbors who wonder why you are standing there, are you a thief?  
Even though you reassure them in your eyes that you are not one and your intentions are innocent, you know that it is a lie. You are a thief. You are here to steal their hearts.

Cold is an interesting thing. For what seems optimistic in the light of the sun, tends to dull its color by the moonlight. It reaches the bones, passing through the entire skeleton and making each muscle, each ligament aching and sensitive to touch. It takes the knowledge that you were never loved and spins it in your heart like a knife. You can fool yourself that you do not love them, that you never did, but the heart cannot lie. The bones and muscles are painful and bleeding from the inside. Because you need your family to hear you. You need them to come and bring light to the cold of your body, and yourheart.

A lamp is being lit somewhere in the house and dies again almost immediately. You realize they had just orbed in. They weren't ignoring you!

Your damn paranoia.

You knock on the door again with renew powers while new hope is transforming all the despair you felt into anticipating, longing, and maybe even love.

You hear someone running down the stairs. Your heart beats faster and faster, your throat closes down, almost chocking you to the point you fall down on your knees, panting. But of course, you cannot do that. You cannot show weakness. Weakness leads to death. And you need to live.

The door is opened…

…Mom is at the door. Mom. At the door. Looking at you. Smiling.

She comes closer to you.

"Chris, is that really you?"

She whispers. It doesn't matter. You hear anyway. Your body stiffens.

_Mom_.

She pulls you closer, her warm arms engulfing you, protecting you. That scent- her scent- is here. She's here. Her lips quiver as she asks, "How?"

You don't say anything. Just keep holding on to her and melt into her arms.

There are shrieks far away, colors around you and then additional warmth. Your aunts are here, too. They are hugging you and taking you closer to them, embracing you as their own. Everything is so warm, so right. You smile and wish that this moment would never end, that it will stretch on and on to eternity until nothing else will ever matter. Not power, revenge or love. Just them. And Mom

"Leo!" someone is calling in a hoarse voice. Maybe it's you. Maybe angels have awakened and returned to earth ,where they belong and maybe, if you are lucky, this is where they will stay.

Mom's shirt is wet. Probably from her tears, probably yours. But the dampness doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Dad is appearing from thin air accompanied by lights. They, your family, cocoon you.

You don't want to let go. You will never want to let go- -

The moment is breaking.

You look at Mom's eyes and stiffen in embracement. You lost yourself for a minute there. You broke down.

This is the cost of emotions.

"Hi Mom." You smile attentively waiting for the flood of questions that will come and for the web of deception to spin around you all.

"Don't you hi me, mister. Where have you been?" She sounds mad but you know better. She's worried. She doesn't know what to do; how to deal with the world now that it granted her you, afraid that when the miracle ends it will take you back to where you belong, far out of her reach, where she can't protect you. To a place where even you cannot protect yourself.

"I returned to the future. Mom, it's amazing." You let the lies come and let the fairytale wash over you as if you really do believe in happy endings. "Wyatt's there and he's the best brother a guy can dream of. You're alive and Paige and Phoebe too. Even Prue visits some days. It's . . . happy. I'm happy."

"So why did you come back?" she whispers so low that you nearly miss the words and your heart almost breaks. You could almost kick this world's you for hurting her, for letting her think that she doesn't deserve you and that you won't come back for her, whatever her she may be.

"You sent me back. You told me that now that everything is fine again I need to come back to the past, to you, to tell you I'm ok. That it's ok to live a little, now. And that you will wait with chocolate- raison cookies for my return."

"I said that?" her voice is soft and she's smiling. You are selling her a dream, you know that, but just for a minute longer you wish to sink in that dream with her. To think that this is the reason you came back. That this is the woman you grew up with, the one who openly admits that she loves you and cares. That she will give her life for you and actually do it. You are smiling too and it's not even part of the plan. Its not one of the hundred details that you and Kyla brew up in order to make your story more reliable. But this is the real you, the one that misses your mom, the onewho can't sleep days and nights because you know that you killed your parents and can't even feel remorse for what you have done. You had to do it; there was no question about it. If by some miracle you could go back in time to that day, you would have done the same thing again.  
Now that you see her, you start questioning for the first time that maybe just maybe this is all wrong. Maybe _this _is the world that you should have been living in. A world where your mom is alive and this feeling you feel now all that…exhilaration is an everyday occurrence. Maybe this is the way things should have been. Maybe you were wrong.

"Yeah, and do you wanna hear the coolest part? I can stay here for a few days and manufacture the vortex to take me right to the minute that you will finish the cookies in the future."

"Wow…you certainly put a lot of thought in that," Paige, always the teacher, compliments you. She is patronizing you again, you point out to yourself angrily, like she always did. She always thought that she was better than anyone else was. That she knew better.  
But maybe she is really proud of you?

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, of course I am, you're my favorite nephew, but…doesn't it sort of count like a personal gain thing?" says Phoebe. She always was the cautious one.

"It could. If it wasn't for Mom saying that I've already come to the past to cheer you up and the world survived. Besides, how else would you have the energy to kick some major demon ass?"

"Well, you certainly changed a bit," Mom says not exactly approvingly or disapprovingly just... surprised. Almost as if she does not yet know how to take the new you. You know that it's a good uncalculated fact that you will throw them off balance right in the beginning but you start to worry. What if they don't believe it is you?

"Yeah." You shrug while your mind is already twirling with ideas and possibilities. "The future's better. I've lived through some really good times. Besides, I was never _that_ neurotic."

They give you the evil eye and refrain from talking. It's ok. You don't really feel like defending someone you don't even know, even if it happens to be you.  
Seriously, your life should be made into a soup-opera. The last thought is a clear sign of it.

"Do you want to come in?" Leo asks, speaking for the first time. Now that you take a moment to study him, you see behind the shock a blizzard of feelings. The most obvious feeling is the overwhelming amount of love, so much that it is actually sickening to see it on the face of the man you have always only seen apathy.

You try to be fair to him in the safety of your mind and to forgive him. In whole, he wasn't such a bad guy. He just wasn't there much. Its ok, it could have been worse. He could have been there _all the time_ and be like David's dad, an unemployed and raging father. You even suspected a few times that he hit him. But that was natural, usual. It was... appropriate.

You should be grateful then that your father was never home.

Then how come reasoning doesn't help?

Now he has changed. Maybe he will even be the father you have always dreamed of when you were a child, someone who will read a goodnight story and check the closet before tucking you into bed to see that there are no monsters hiding in the closetbecausein your family, anything can happen.  
Maybe this Leo is better just like mom is better. Maybe this whole fucking world is better and it was you who was stuck in a dysfunctional world even before you turned it into your personal zoo. Maybe this world's you was better even if he was a real nutcase.

Not that _you_ are really sane, of course.

You had a psychiatrist once. Not a real one but of your minions who learned it and you wanted to see how well this psychiatry babble really was.  
He told you to relax and that all he really wanted was to help.

After the second hour, he declared that you were insane. You opened the door and let him lead himself out and closed your heart ever since to all those good-doers.

The only good thing that came from that mess was that you were able to practice with live targets instead of rabbits in the morning fireball practice.  
Insert evil giggle here.

You probably spent too much time wondering and you can see them eyeing you strangely. Well, of course they are, you just zone out on them.

"Sure," you say lightly as if nothing happened. As if the atmosphere around you and your family is not laden with fear, worry, and lies. Pretending as if everything is all right. Pretending... because this is easy. Because sometimes the truth hurts more than pretence.

So you come into the house that you remember from your childhood and even though everything is the same, it couldn't be any more different. The small things made the changes- the happy pictures on the buffet that are a marker of all the happy occurrences in their lives that you never shared. A picture of little you who looks so innocent, his eyes so big and trusting is the newest one to the collection. A picture of big you, the other you, in an old tattered picture where you are hugging everyone and looking so belong is there, too. Even when he didn't belong to the era, he belonged in his family. But you, you are even more of a stranger than he was.

You sit and watch their faces around you, studying them, noting changes. They all look more lit from the inside, you realize, almost glowing. Even the darkness fears them.  
Even you .

"So, honey, tell me about the future."

"There's not much to tell, really. I mean, life is pretty normal."

"Come on! Give me some itsy bitsy details." Aunt- Paige is practically begging. She is not your aunt, you remind yourself. She is Paige. Your aunt died. "Who did I marry?"

"A guy named Gavin. A doctor."

"Oh, doctor." At least Phoebe approves. Actually, she always approved on him. You used to think she had had a crush on him but didn't say anything for the sake of her sister.

"Gavin? From all the guys in the world I will have the one with the most horrible name. What was I, drugged?"

"Actually…"

"Hey! Does the phrase future consequences ring any bell?" Piper interferes, her voice harsh and commending, maternal.

"Which side are you on? Spoilsport."

"What about me?" Phoebe asks and you don't know what to say to her, how to soften the impact that after Cole she will have no one.

"You find someone, too." You lie to her smoothly, not the least bit bothered by the way her face is being lit by a lie. Maybe she will find someone, you reason. Maybe now, that you gave her the right motivation, she will find the love she needs so much. After all, tampering with the past always changes the future.

"Ok, no more questions," Leo barges in, always being the Elder. Only here Elders are for the good side  
. Weird.

"Tell me a little about yourself." Piper looks at her husband thankfully and concentrates on you, her glare intense.

"Yeah, what about Bianca?" Phoebe asks innocently.

"Shush. Maybe now they're not together anymore," Paige mumbles in Phoebe's direction but you can see that her heart isn't in it. She wants to hear, too.

"We're. . ." What the hell, why not give them the truth? "She's dead."

"Oh baby, I'm so sorry." Mom rushes to your side, hugging you so fiercely that you know her heart is going out to you, that she wants to help. And just for a tiny moment you are entertained by the thought that maybe it's better to tell them everything and be over with it. Maybe they will understand and help you kill the one who killed Bianca. They know what a loss can do to a person. They felt it.

Maybe they could feel for you.

But you already know that this is useless. They are good witches in this world. They probably never encountered any bad feelings. All the white beings are living in fantasy; grief and anger are foreign to them.

They won't understand. They can't. It's all about lines and what it takes to cross them and you know that while you jump from one side to the other, they will have to be pushed to it. They can't cut the red line of morality like you always could, like yours- theirs could. They are different now. They can't understand you.

You are alone.


	9. Patching Up a Tearless Dream

And here's another chapter!

**Ligia Elena-** Thanks for your review and don't feel bad. It was my intention that it would take some time to figure things out, otherwise I would have simply said in the first chapter- hi, my name is Chris and I'm for an alternate universe.  
Well, I could! But of course I would never do that. I like to torture people too much… bad me.

**Danna5-** HYere's the next chapter. You didn't even have to wait for long! Who would have believed? And thank you so much for the compliment. When I write a chapter I feel like I'm in it so I'm glad that I managed to pass this feeling.

And of course, thanks for**_ Shadowhiper_** whom I wish I had in all my English tests….

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**Chapter 8**

The night is full of shadows just waiting for the first ray of sunshine to come, so they can hide. But you have never feared the shadows. The darkness is obvious; it needs to be there. It is comforting.  
In the dawn, however, light leaks into the darkness and pretence comes to the world; presenting it as safe.  
But safety is an illusion. Dawn is illusion.  
Darkness is the only thing that real.

You throw the blanket off you and flop onto your back trying to find a more comfortable position. Looking around the room, you see that nothing is right: the shadow figures dancing on the walls are wrong, the organization of the things in the room is wrong, the smell, sense, and taste of the air is wrong. Everything is wrong.

Finally giving up on your ridiculous crusade to sleep you get up. You begin traveling through the house, determined to explore every bit of it. You needed to do it anyway, you reason, going downstairs. After all, you must know every corner, every shadow every leaf is making has to come as natural to you. You have to know the place they put their medicine, and the cabinet where they lock away their knives. Where their potion stash is and most importantly, you need to know how to fool the Book of Shadows into letting you touch it. The knowledge you memorized will not last you forever. At the first sign that you do not know something about a demon, and there is no doubt that such time will come, you will be made to touch the book. Then you will be rejected. You will be discovered. You will fail.  
You'll die.

You see the old photo of the other you and your eyes cannot help but linger. He looked so much like you. It is strange to even comprehend that somewhere out there, there was someone who stole your face and his spirit was filled with light.

You place your finger over the other you as if you will be able to touch his flesh and feel that he was real. Your finger starts to shake and you can suddenly hear voices. Shouts.

_You are 10 and he shouts at you. "Dammit, Chris, what are you saying?"  
__You want to explain that you saw who took Wyatt but can't. Trying desperately to make a sound that is logical, you begin to stutter, "Ce. .e.. e.."  
__You fight every vocal cord in your throat but it is not enough. It's too hard. _

"_We're busy now, Chris. We're looking for your brother," Mom tells you in a babyish voice, completely ignoring the fact that you are already 10 and know quite well what is going on around you. You try to tell her, to explain but the words are treacherous just like the hearts of the demons that took your brother and the family's rare calmness. They all fail now, paling from what the demon has done. _

_So you tug Aunt Phoebe's coat, trying to make her understand. Hoping that maybe through her powers she can read you and tell them what is on your mind. You do not know if she understands or not, and you never had the time to find out._

_Leo barges in._

_Sure, you saw him mad before but nothing compared to the total breakdown that he is experiencing. It is as if someone took your father and replaced him with a pseudo, one that you do not like one bit.  
__It is only when you are older that you are told that he behaved like this before, too. The circumstances remained vague._

"_Dad…"_

_But he doesn't listen to what you have to say. Your voice making his blood boil .  
__He shouts, tosses and destroys. All the china in the house becomes nothing more than bare shreds, so tiny._

_He looks at you and his eyes burning with hate. Hate towards you, maybe. Perhaps hate towards the world, or himself.  
__Then it is too hard for him to manage. And he leaves. _

"_Dammit, Chris, what were you thinking?" Mom whispers, her voice defeated. She descends to the couch effortlessly like the princess in all the fairytales you saw and closes her eyes with fatigue._

_Wanting to make her feel better, you take the broom and begin to sweep the endless room, slowly, carefully, so there will be no glass left. Maybe if you collect all the pieces, Mom will be able to mend them back. Maybe then, everything will be ok._

_Aunt Paige comes to you and tells you that it's ok, you don't have to do it. You do not listen, just continue to sweep with so much consideration that you do not hear anything around you. You are completely oblivious to the world, all that matters is the gleaming spots on the floor, the bringers of your doom, as you will call them from now on. They are all that matters._

_That is why you do not sense that Mom wakes up, Dad returns and the world continues to swing with you left behind, sweeping. And no matter how much you want to gather all of the pieces, you always see another tiny one you missed. There are so many and only at the fall of dawn are you sure you have collected them all._

_You bring them to Mom. She takes all the pieces from you while questions stretch across her face. _

"_All the pieces are here, now we can mend them back," you whisper, your voice quivering._

"_Thank you, honey," she says tiredly. She turns around and tosses everything into the garbage._

_Maybe she did not believe that you could mend everything, no matter how much you wanted to. __Then she hugs you so tightly that you cannot breathe and you let out only a small squall of pain. Something is stabbing your hand._

_You were wrong. You did not collect all the pieces, there was one still in your hand. That is probably why Mom was not able to fix it; you did not do a good job.  
__So you are left with the shred in your hand where it stays until the day you will die many years after and as a constant reminder to why you continue to block yourself from premonitions._

You are not sure what you have just seen and how you saw it but one thing is clear: the child was you. Only, it never happened to you. The china that _that_ Chris broke was used in your and Bianca's marriage.

What's happening? Should you worry that you are losing your mind?

"Chris, is that you?" Mother is coming down the stairs, her eyes shady from either tears, lack of sleep, or both. You cannot think of the woman in your premonition anymore but only the one who cares so much and loves you beyond anything that you will ever be able to feel. Your mother was not like that, so this feeling is new. And you drink in her presence and inhale the familiar scent of childhood. That is silly really but _your_ mom used that jasmine perfume as well. The scent hits you, dazzles your wits, leaving you raw and aching, bleeding from the inside. Because when you came here and conspired against them you did not take into consideration the fact that she will look so much like _Mom_. Now _her_ death is replaying in your mind again and again and again and the bridge of guilt, the one you were always so careful to leave closed, is now broken.

"What's wrong, baby?"

"Nothing, everything is fine." You gather yourself together and force yourself to see Bianca's face crying in your mind's eye. You do not care anymore that everything is a lie because vengeance- vengeance is real. It is strong. Revenge is stronger than love. And rumors claim that love conquers all.

"Ok. I love you. Goodnight." Her eyes are studying you for a short moment then leave. She walks away, her motherly instincts wrong once again. She did not detect the self- loathing or the anger. Even if she did sense all of those, she failed to see that you wanted her to confront you. You wanted to be freed, to end the lie. You needed her to go away and say what she really feels about you, that she hates you. You needed to tell her that you hate her too and to believe that. There is no other way because you need to hate her. You want her to go away. You want her not to talk to you and even if she does, she needs to stop walking on eggshells every time she sees you. You are not fragile. She will not hurt you.  
In fact, it is she who needs to be afraid that you will hurt her. Not to be afraid, to be sure that you will. Because you have done it already. You have killed her.

You want her to go away because you are afraid that if you hug her you will kill her gripping too hard.

While realizing that you are standing in the kitchen and staring into thin air, an urgent need attacks you to go upstairs and find a solution to the most pressing matter at hand: the Book.

Scheming in the distance on the stairs is easy but when you open the door to the attic and face the Book that you know you _should _be able to touch, you feel like a stranger. All the feelings that you hid so very well from yourself are coming back. But this time the sense of necessity cannot stop them at bay. This is the night. The shadows need to be unleashed.

No.  
You will not break down, not when you are so close. Later. When it stops hurting so much to know you once had family who loved you. When it will not matter if they realize you are not _him_. Until then the truth cannot be known because it is good for your cause. Later, you can mourn.

Inhaling, you come closer to the book. First things first, you touch it.

As you expected, the Book senses your difference and leaps out of its resting place to the floor. Its thud echoes so loudly that you stay paralyzed for a moment, trying to hear if any of the girls are coming.

Thank goodness, they all sleep like bears in winter. Even if they are awake maybe they think that it is normal for you to explore the Book at night. Hell knows that the rumors flying around in the underworld intoned that you were a neurotic geek.

Time for plan A. which is the only plan you've got, so you really hope it works- spells. It's all about magic, right?

Figures and speeches float in your head as you try to rhyme several sentences that will actually have a connection. When you were little you thought that what mattered was the rhyming so when you tried to come up with a spell that would bring your cat back you thought for a really disturbing reason that _cat_ and _hat_ would do the trick.  
It is probably needless to say that you ended up having a tail with the shape of a hat.  
And it was green.

Clearing your head from memories, you begin chanting:

_**Spirits of evil, demons of joy  
**__**Come and help me with this ploy  
**__**The rhyming sucks but the heart is needy  
**__**Let me do what my heart is greedy.**_

You try touching the book, really convincing yourself this time that it will work. Why wouldn't it?

Apparently, the spirits, demons and higher forces thought your spell sucked at least as much as you did and rejected your plea. Really, it is not your fault that you are terrible at rhyming. It is kinda hard being a poetic tyrant.

You take another piece of paper, thinking it is a really good thing that they leave the paper and pens the same place as your family always did and try to come up with a better spell. You take all the traces of amusement that the nice memory brought and bury it away. Your survival is on the line here. You have to concentrate.

_**Come here evil and lend me a hand…**_

No, it could be interpreted really badly.

Hmm…

_**Shreds…seeds!**_

_**Seeds of pure evil  
**__**Rise and behold  
**__**Protect all the secrets  
**__**But the truths unfold  
**__**The mind is weary yet the body is ready so much  
**__**To lock the book of its ancestors  
**__**With a touch**_

Yes, that has to be one of your better ones. At least better then the last one.

Full of confidence you touch the damn book…

And fail.

Come on!

_**Come on, let me off the hook  
**__**And damn it let me touch this book!**_

Ok, so you did not actually think that this one would work since it has the subtlety of an elephant but Phoebe always said that the direct approach worked better. Of course, she was talking about girls and the time was before you were a tyrant so woman did not actually stand in line to be with you even if it was only to kill you. . . but that story is for another time.

You try touching that cursed book anyway. What have you got to lose?

You stare with amazement when your hand does not get its familiar voltage treatment when you touch the Book. Finally, your plan is one step closer to being completed.

"Chris?"

Shit.

With all of your concentration channeled to opening the creative part of your brain, there was obviously not enough space for practicality or hearing anything that was less than 8 decibels loud. You did not think and did not realize that with the amount of noise you were making you were bound to wake one of them, which is bad. Very bad.

Ok, what is worse is. Paige is not buying this whole I'm-innocent-love-me vibes that you are trying to project. Damn, you stumbled to the wrong sister. And she is reading those awful spells.

"'Let me touch this book…'Chris, what's going on?" She is hesitant but you do not wait for a sudden apprehension to come. You really like your head where it is, thank you very much.

So you try going away in the only way you can think of- you black orb out.

Idiot!

Now she knows for sure that you are evil. If you are lucky, she only thinks that you are possessed. However, if she has the kind of brain that you actually know she has, she is on to you. The plan is ruined. Everything is ruined!

You go back to your room and do the only thing you can think of.  
You hide under the bed.


	10. Debunking

_Thank you for reading. Here's another chapter. Enjoy.__

* * *

_

_**I run faster than you" said the turtle to the mouse.  
"Ho,well," shrugged the mouse, "I get to eat cheese." **_

* * *

**Chapter 9**

You lay in the place people use to call darkness and pray. Because duskiness has now evaded all parts of life and even your sanctuary- your home, your bed- are not safe anymore. You listen to what people use to call wind, what they use to name as ruffle and you tear your mattress away. Without thinking, without knowing what you are doing, you take the sheet and tear it down strip after strip systematically as if you actually know what you are doing.  
Then the pillow is gone as well and the baby blue blanket that you loved so much when they gave it to you because it reminded you of home. You cannot face it, cannot touch it, but you tear it. Tear it away. Tear it apart.  
Your bed is shaking, the floor turning away. Black. Everything blackens - - -Something is shattered far away - -A raven is screaming, nails scratching a board - - Pain. Misery. Sadness. The room is closing on you, fast. Have to hide.  
The bed is trembling. Floor is shaking as well. Hot. It's so hot . . . need air. Breathe.  
Somewhere someone is shootinh. Too loud!

Door creaks. Fire. Red and hot. Hot. So hot. Can't breathe . . . need air.  
Breathe!

Can't.

"Chris, open up, please." The monster behind the door is trying to lure you into its claws. You are not naïve enough to open the door. So youkeep it closed. Just the way you like it- safe.

"Come on, honey, talk to me." The voice is softening, impersonating caring and loving. But you will not fall to that trap; all the prey has the right to run away.

Run!

You crawl from under the bed and are assailed by a bright light. The noise would not stop; it gets louder and louder, ringing in your ear. It would not stop. Would not stop.  
Would someone stop it?  
Please!

You scream, "SSTTTTOOOOPPPP!"

It doesn't.

But you hope that it will. Hope is all you have been left with. So you scream and wonder. Wonder and scream. All time seems to be the present, yesterday, and even tomorrow morning. For time means nothing in the void that you have created in which you hope to stay forever.

"Please, baby, I want to talk to you." Just for a moment, you are tempted to do that, to open the door and to explain anything, to believe that everything is still salvable. That they can still love you, accept you, or simply not hate you so much. Maybe.

You open the door.  
You don't want to but your hand is opening the door almost without asking you. As if you are possessed. At this point, you will not rule out possession completely since maybe love is a kind of control. The meanest kind of control since the other person manages to manipulate you even when you know that you are being controlled. But you like every moment of it because this is called love and smarter people than you have already stated that life without love is not worth living.

"Thank god, I was worried...what happened?" Piper asks and you do not know if she asks about you, the way that your face is blackened and dull, or the room. The ever-neat room now looks like the remains of a war zone. Perhaps this is exactly what it is, a war between you and yourself, of the darkest parts of you and those you never knew were lit, and the you who still believes- won.

"Nothing, really. I'm fine." you say and do not know if you were ever farther from fine in your entire life.

"Please don't lie to me. I can see that you are **not** fine."

"You have no right using that tune on me." You glare, your temper rising when you hear her patronizing words. Those hateful words that you have heard many times before, one time too many times before, and right before she died.

The transformation is amazing. The once so fierce woman is shrinking into herself. All her self-confidence and bravado disappearing into thin air, into herself ,maybe, to the place that you know she can still love you and that you will savor forever.

"I'm sorry," youput your hand on her shoulder. You did not mean to hurt her, not now. It is too soon.

"It's ok. I get it. I'm not the mother you know or at least, not _yet._" She emphasizes the last word and in that one word you are being given insight in to what she must be feeling. She does not know you, you realize, does not know anything about you. However, she still loves and cares about you enough to swallow your angry words and to forgive. You, who knew her your entire life, will never be able to absolve her.

"I'm sorry about…before."

"What happened?" she asks and just for a moment, her eyes are less shining and the aura around her is a bit less pure. Probably your imagination, but only for this fragment of a second, she looks less perfect, more reachable and someone that might even understand the meaning of necessity.  
Then you blink and the picture is blurring around her and she returns to be her righteous self. You have to lie. It can protect you.This is the closest thing to safe that you can reach with your door wide open.

You think quickly of an excuse. You settle for part of the truth. "I panicked."

"Why? What happened?" If you had not known, had not _felt_, that she was your enemy, she would have cracked you in those words. Thankfully, though, you are immune to this psychological war. She died, and ghosts are emotionless.

You look at her, at the blue crib that is beside you and her again. An idea is tinkling in your head and you know already even before saying it that she will buy your excuse. Even before winning, you know that she has lost. "I still remember some things from the other timeline," you say and shrug theatrically hoping that you are a much better actor than you were in high school. "He did something to the book . . . he, I mean Wyatt. I couldn't touch it. I suddenly remembered it and panicked. I don't know why. I'm sorry"

"Oh, Chris why didn't you just tell me?"

"I didn't want to worry you. You already have so much to think about, so many people are your responsibility. I don't ever want to cause you pain." For a moment, you actually believe your words and in that precious moment all time ceases to mean anything. The globe stops turning, you halt and breathe. You want to go back to your hiding, where you were safe, did not need to confront your feeling, or lie about them. You only had to lie to yourself, which was fine.

You were used to that.

Her face is sorrowful for a minute and then she collects you in her arms, her body quivering while being warm, soft, and welcoming. It reminds you of better times, of worse times and of moments that are beyond this one's comprehension. If you could have, you would have melted into her arms and hugged her back, turning all vile thought into nothing, becoming the son she deserves to have. If you could have, you would have told her everything in that minute, all the things you have hidden from her, hidden from yourself and said internally that it was fine, that you could manage. You would have confessed in front of her that it is not all right, that you cannot survive like this. That everything confuses you all of a sudden. Because you have always believed that you belonged to the right side, the one that believed that the greater cause allows casualties but now it is not ok. The casualty was her, your brother, your family, and everyone that was close to you that is gone. If you could have, you would have told her that you are sorry, so very much. Sorry that you cannot be sorry and beg her for forgiveness. You would have told her everything if she had wanted because deep inside you want to tell her. You need to extract the poison from your heart, so you can live.

If you could have you would had told her all of that. But the last time you confessed before her, you told her that you killed Wyatt and she went and killed herself. The newborn baby died. Hope died. Even Adam abandoned you to fight windmills far away from you and though he told himself that it was for your sake, you know better, he wanted to get away from you. For you were a murderer and even your brother could not stand the sight of you any longer.

So you instead, you lie.

You rip your body away from hers and smile. "I'm ok, Mom. Really."

It does not matter that the word Mom is choked down your throat and up your spine, that you shudder in fear of what she may think of you if she had known, and afraid of the moment that it will come. Because it will come and when it happens, you will care. Even though you will not want to, you will not have a choice. You are programmed to respond to her, you were taught to want only her approval, by whatever means possible.

"Chris, listen to me and listen very carefully. I mean it. You are my **son**. I _want_ to worry about you. It's not a burden and I don't want you to not tell me something because you're afraid it might hurt me. No matter what you say and what you do, I'll never, ever, not accept you. Do you understand me?"

"I can't," you say and then hurry to explain when you see her open her mouth to object. "Not because I don't want to but because I can't. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to have to remember it. Is that too much to ask?" You wonder from where all that bitterness came all of a sudden.

She stays silent. Maybe she does not want to say that the all-powerful mother does not have a magic solution to this one.

"You have to face your fears," she says softly and you mockingly wonder what _she_ knows about fears.

"Why?"

"Otherwise they'll consume you. You know what happened after Prue died, honey, don't you?"

She became a fairy for a while. She could not deal with having anyone die anymore so she fought so everyone would live. Thankfully, she was too big so the other fairies did not accept her. It is weird to think that she was saved due to technicalities. Still, you wonder what happened to her here.

Maybe she sees the question mark on your face because she says, "I became a fury. That's…"

"An anger sucking demon. I know." You were a pretty good friend to some of them, all thanks to Sheila, Morris's wife. After all, she was the witch of seduction. It was in her party that you met the other magical beings.

"How did you manage to turn back into yourself?" you ask and are surprised to realize that you are actually interested.

"I really didn't tell you?" She sounds genuinely surprised. Not that it should surprise you. Mom did like to tell you in great detail about everything that happened to her that was magic related. . .and many things that weren't. "Cole saved me"

"Cole?"

You know your mouth is opened in a very un-lordish way and that for the sake of your cover you should not let her see your surprise but…Cole? They did not even meet him yet in your time. However, in order to maintain the cosmic balance, the power of three has to die the same time in all the universes. Here it probably did not happen because of Cole so they could meet him sooner.

"Wasn't Cole evil?" You find a dignifying answer for the trouble you have put yourself into. After all, if in your universe he was good then here he was evil. Hmm…that is a nice imagination motivation.

"That was much later. And he always loved Phoebe. He would do anything to help her. Anything."

"Why are you defending him like that? He was evil."

"I don't know." She sighed and looked genuinely confused for a minute. "I guess that not everything is as easy as black and white, good and evil. Cole had a bad side, yes, but he fought that side for the sake of the one he loved. I found that noble even back then, when he hurt all of us so much."

"But… you're good witches. How can you tolerate having someone that's not pure and good among you?"

She looks at you shocked for a minute and then her face softens. "You _are_ good , Chris. And even if you weren't, I'd still love you. God knows that nobody's perfect."

"You are," you blurt out without intending to.

She looks at you, calculating something and shame fills her face. "I treated you so horribly in all those months you were here. Oh, baby, I don't think I can ever forgive myself. And even now…"

She swallows her words, mumbling something but your curiosity has peaked already. You will not let her back down now.

"I forgave you already." You find that it is much easier to say that than you thought it would be and you really mean it. You do not hate her anymore, you find in amazement. In those few moments, she became real to you. Someone who can hurt and be hurt just like everyone else. Though you do not know what she has done to the other you, you do not care. She made a mistake. She is not perfect. She is human.

She can be like Mom.

"And what's wrong with now?"

"I…" she starts to say but then stops herself willfully, looks at you with so much love in her eyes and takes a deep breath. "No, I told you to fight your demons. I ought to fight mine. I…I couldn't talk to you. I didn't even want to talk to you now. I knew that you were hurting and that something was wrong but I didn't say anything about it, not when you first came and not when you were touching your picture, looking so lost."

"I thought I fooled you!"

"I fooled myself. I talked myself into thinking that everything was alright even when my heart knew that it wasn't." Then she broke down. "I can't lose you again, Chris. I can't!"

You cannot promise her that you will not leave, that she will not lose you or that you would never die. You can't tell her anything and can't do anything but watch her cry, helpless, so opposite from what she presented in the first day, so different from your mom who never broke down and always fought for what she believed in. However, you cannot feel disgusted with her and her weakness. There is something warm in your eyes- tears.

You do not want to lose her all over again, too.

"Don't leave me, Chris." She sobs and touches your arm as if to draw in comfort but you cannot feel her gentle touch or the cool of her fingers, you cannot feel anything. All you hear are her words.

"_Don't leave me, Chris."_

"_Don't leave me, Chris."_

Why are they echoing?

_You are sitting in a dark room. There is only a bed, a closet, and a tiny window that does not let any light get in. Only shadows of light, if such things exists.  
Only.__ here they do. Everything is darker here._

"_Don't leave me, Chris!" There is another person in the room. A woman. Her face is being hidden by the darkness but you could never mistake the voice._

_Bianca._

_What is she doing here?_

_Where is **here**?_

"_Why? So you can tell my brother that you've achieved your mission?" you hear yourself shout, your voice hard and dry as it never was with her. You wonder what is going on here. Why are you fighting her? Why do you hate her, and how can you even think of hating her? She's she. She is everything that is good in the world; she is everything that is good in you. How can you talk to her like that?_

"_No!" She sounds desperate and you want to take your hand and touch her face, feel that its real, but you cannot. Your hand is staying next to your body, clutched into a fist and vibrating with anger. "You know I'd never do that! You know me!"_

"_I thought I knew you," you say and hate yourself for these words so much. You were given a second chance. How dare you mess that up!_

"_You still do. I'm still the same person." She is begging. You have never heard her beg before. _

"_You work for my brother! You're an assassin! How can I ever trust you?" You shout so loud that the echo from the walls is tripling every noise, making everything worse. This is the other Chris; you suddenly recall that he had an evil brother. And Bianca worked for him?_

"_I may work for your brother but I am not your brother. I didn't make the mistake of associating with the two of you. I can see there's something in you that he will never have. I love you, Chris. And I know you love me. Tell me you love me. Please."_

_She is needy, pathetic and reduced to a quivering pile of waste. But you love her. You prepare to tell her that but something entirely different leaves your mouth._

"_Our love was a lie, Bianca. You were a lie."_

"_No. You don't believe that."  
__  
"I just don't believe in you." _

_She looks at you and there is something hard in her eyes. Something behind all that hurt, need and passion, hiding beneath all the emotions that defined her as herself. For the first time, there is anger. Maybe at you, him, maybe herself for falling in love or being an assassin in the first place. Maybe at fate._

_It does not matter.You know what is going to happen._

"_Please leave," you say and your voice islike a machine, without a trace of feeling. You want to bash your head into the wall until you realize reason. This woman would have given up everything to be with you. This is the kind of love that does not come along every day; this is the stuff of legends._

_He just gave up on that._

_The fool._

_She leaves and takes all the residues of light with her, to the outside. Maybe there, there will be someone who will appreciate her more. _

"Are you ok?" Mom's eyes are looking at yours worryingly, her brows knitting together trying to solve what just happened.

"Yeah." You reassure her wishing she would stop asking you that. "I just had a flashback from my other life."

"And…?"

"It was about Bianca." You do not even try to hide the quiver in your voice. You loved her,and that is the one thing you cannot lie about. That you will never lie about. Not as long as you're alive. "He… I… figured out that she was an assassin and left her. I was so cruel, Mom. I saw her cry and beg and I didn't even care. I just hated her so much. How I could hate her?"

"You didn't hate her, honey. In the end you came back together."

"Then I don't deserve her. Not after this. Never after this," you say knowing you were never worthy of her in the first place and the reason you can never have her in whatever universe is because the relationship between the two of you was destined to live only on borrowed time. and her being with you had made her life shorter.

"Don't be so harsh on yourself," she pleads and in a sudden insight, you understand that she is right. You did not live the same life the other you had. You were the evil brother back then; you did not know how to be the servant. Maybe you would have acted the same. Maybe you wouldn't have. Maybe she did things you could not forgive. The point is that you cannot judge yourself by something you did not do. You are reliving his nightmare, his reality, and if he wronged it was his mistake to make.

He was not perfect. He was good, but not perfect. That idea boggles your mind yet it does not sound as far fetched as you thought it would. Maybe mistakes are not the legacy of evil alone. Maybe the balance is stayed by exactly that- that either side does not know, does not care, that the other one laments for his mistakes, too.

Maybe both sides are in the same boat, forever trying to swim across the river that the gods have created. Perhaps the gods are afraid that one day both sides will realize that they are being manipulated to fight in order to feed the gods' hunger for war, and they will stop. They will fight the gods instead.  
And because both good and evil will join together- this time they'll win.

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	11. The Forgotten

_A/N- This is a different POV. Just wanted to make that absolutely clear...  
__Oh, and I know that the summary is a bit strange, but I promise that it has connection to the story. All will be explained in time. You know me..._

_**Thanks for all of you who reviewed me!**_

* * *

He's not afraid of ghosts. Really, he isn't. He doesn't shriek away every time they draw close to him, begging him to take their hands and come out, and he certainly isn't shivering in the nights afterward like a scared child. He doesn't care when they come near him looking like his family. For why should he fear invisible foes?

He's not afraid with each day's passing that he is losing something of his initial resistance, getting more and more like them. He doesn't care that the things he used to like to touch have become acid to his hands and evaporating as the wind takes them away. He is not a child full of fears who lacks compassion. He knows that those who surround him are here not by their fault. He is like them; he is not here because he has made a mistake.

He knows that. He really does.

He knows it's not his fault that he's here and because of that, all the tears of the dreamers are his territory. He is not fearful of the dreamers, they are what he once was, and there was never need to be afraid of him. He knows that no one is angry with him because he is not with them anymore, even though he is. They can accept that he wants to be alone. They told him that themselves and he still believesthem. He is not afraid.

Someone is coming to fetch him again. He can feel it. He can always feel it when one of them is growing near. They call it a blessing.  
Hhe says it's his curse.

"Please come out," she begs him for the thousandth time. She looks genuine enough, like she cares and he is the same one who loved her so many years ago.

He doesn't care that her voice is sending hot shivery lines through his entire body, reminding him of other nights where they sat together in the midst of the rain. It doesn't scathe that there is pain in that innocent voice. Though it sounds wrong, it doesn't bother him. It's not like he cares or anything. He can live without her, without her faith in him.

Of course he can. He will.

He doesn't reach out to touch her hand. He's good in here- hiding. He doesn't feel the softness of her palm, the sweet hand he will always remember on his skin and that can burn him alive. He doesn't see her eyes turning wide, trusting, happy. Because he finally came around and that after all these years he has come to see reason. All she needed to do was to keep up faith in him.

And the air isn't fresh outside, such unimaginable sweetness in the air. It is like having a first real breathe, like being reborn to a world where purity really exists. Everything that surrounds him is so magnificent and right. How could he have hidden all those years?

Only, he doesn't feel any of that. He doesn't feel a thing.

He isn't floating and doesn't get to experience the ultimate feeling of freedom. The perspective isn't different; it is not strange and looking different from above, almost hazy and reachable.

The blindness doesn't catch his breathe and his his senses are not aching from all the stimuli and light. So much stimuli and light. So much more than he has ever experienced, and he's not sure he can survive it alone.

He doesn't reach out his hand to touch the void that surrounds him and definitely isn't praying that he will not fall when he meets the nothing, hoping the ghosts won't dare hunt him in the land of living.

But he knows better, he knows what he has to go up against. After all, he was one of them once.

He _is_ one of them.

"Please don't do it." She isn't standing near him now, her face isn't so close, and her eyes aren't looking at his wide open.

"You can't stop me." He, of course, doesn't say those words to her knowing how much they would hurt her.

"I don't want to lose you. . ." She doesn't put her hand on his shoulder and he can't feel her.

The process never began. It couldn't, not while he's still hiding. Not while he is safe.

Only he isn't safe- he will never again be.

He looks at her and her colors are beginning to dull, her face transparent under the light of the moon. There are miles of landscape lingering before him and he can almost feel them behind her. All he needs to do is stretch out his hand and touch them, but he's not ready to let go yet. What was he thinking? He will never be ready to let her go.

Her face has almost fully disappeared. All that's left is a smile dancing on her lips and a great hollow in her eyes. He wants to ask her to stay with him- to fight for him. But it was his choice to make and once he chose there's no coming back. He knows that now. He knew that back then too.

He just didn't think it would be this hard.

"Remember me." Her voice is echoing and he can't be sure anymore if it is she or the wind. Perhaps she is one with the wind now, just as he is one with the flesh.

He still looks at where she ought to be, where he last saw her. He can't let her go, not that easily. He knows he will never forget her. Even if he ever wanted to, he couldn't.

He remembers their time together and can feel tears rolling down his cheeks- real tears, real cheeks.

He remembers how they met, her first laugh and her first smile. He remembers himself before her, after and while. All the phases of time and all the phases of the world began and ended before them. They were one with it in all its steps, while the world cried and laughed, when it raged at them and for them.

_"Remember me." _

He remembers how she touched him like that before when they spent their last days dancing, and ignoring the world just like it ignored them. Seagulls flew above them and clouds poured over their heads heaps of burning rain. Yet they kept dancing, the world itself couldn't make them stop. In the end, they stopped by themselves. The hours grew late and dim, and they had no power left. So they sat on the beach, empty handed and bare-footed, listening to the beats of their own hearts.

Boom boom. Boom. Boom.

The sands of the clock began pouring in its wrath behind them. Tick tock tick tock, it sang.

But they didn't listen; they didn't care. Then time ran away completely and they were set free. Still dancing, twirling and hovering on the forsaken beach in the end of the world, singing mortal words with immortal conviction that it will not die too, they would not let it.

But ghosts do not have much footage in the land of living.

They did not know it back then. They did not think they would ever care about ghosts.

_"Remember me." _

He remembers that once he did not want to be called an angel, to become just one more lie in the infinite circle of the mankind, but since then he has had to learn to compromise his ideals for the sake of pretending. Since then he has realized that all he ever wanted was to be an angel. Life as a mortal, he realized as the perspective went farther and farther away, truly and utterly sucked.

So he remembers because he has no other choice. Her words are being etched in his mind and soul, or what is left of them anyway.

He remembers because he loves her and knows he will never see her again.

As the sun begins its voyage toward the belly of the earth and away from the land of the angels, he knows he may not want to believe all of which occurred to him in the last years, but he has no choice. He is standing now in front of the great golden gates and all who come here can no longer turn back. So he traces the gate lines with his index finger determined to come back one day when he is ready. He takes a big breathe…

And opens the gate.

Maybe when the light fades away he will see the world again.

Or maybe he never will.

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	12. Before The End of Time

_Hi!  
I hope that you guys will like this chapter since this is one of those that I actually liked myself. As always, I would like to thank the people who reviewed me and those who simply read what I wrote, and to my beta. And now, on to the story!_

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**Chapter 10**

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It's night once again. You are in your bed, your childhood bed that brings so many memories, good, bad, and worse. You try to slide further inside the blanket, to find comfort and warmth whereas the outside is full of apathy and fear. Yet the blanket is too short so while you burrow under the covers your toes are freezing cold hanging uselessly outside.

You turn around, trying to find a comfortable position, and fail. Lay on your stomach, but then your side is exposed. Lie on your back and your head is throbbing. Lying on your side causes your hands to get that tingly feeling when they don't get enough blood; it's annoying and bothers you to no end.

You count sheep- one sheep. Two sheep. A herd. They are walking towards you and away from you cockily as if knowing that you cannot do anything properly; not to hurt them, not even to sleep. One sheep is looking at you with its gaze penetrating your soul and you feel compelled to turn your eyes from its blaming gaze.

You count the minutes. It is more exciting than it sounds, really, and soon you are lost in the rhythm that you know will stay the same forever. No matter where you look, no matter in which country, time or dimension you are in, the sound will always be the same, waiting for you. A deceitful consistency that you know exists only there, where there are no living beings to ruin the perfection.

You're supposed to sleep but can't. You're afraid. That's right, the mighty you is petrified of the night.

At nights you dream of headless men that are coming to get you and of deceased ghosts that have come back to life just for the lone purpose of hunting you down. You try to get away from them every time, to turn away from their lure and run away, but in each and every night they are pushing you toward a great abyss. One step forward - and you fall.

It wouldn't have been half bad if the dreams just happened and faded away in the morning- joining to the forgetfulness void that is stored in the darkest parts of your unconscious where even you cannot reach. Where nights can stretch beyond time- and you wouldn't have cared. Yet even your subconscious, it seems, does not want to let you get away that easily with the situation afoot. It taunts you and hunts you.  
You always remember the dreams. You cannot forget them. Those are the dreams you ignored and wanted, denied as yours and never even once managed to be awakened from by yourself. The nightmares, you remember them as well as you do the good dreams- the hope and revenge and the lust. You even dreamed of trust once when you dared to open up your heart. You remember all of that and so much more. You remember more then just the names of emotions, you can actually feel them in a ridiculous sense of nostalgia, how they felt, how the loses reaped your heart open, and how your successes tried to mend all the piece back together while never even once coming close to succeeding. You even remember the emptiness that was always there, that is still there, and you aren't sure that you want to be rid of it. You are used to that feeling- of the emptiness. So muchthat you cannot be sure that when it is gone one day and it will not be replaced with something worse, something that you can't fight against, something you are not ready for. You have the weapon againstthe nothing but against everything else- you'll lose.

During the days, you act as if nothing bothers you, as if time itself has not become your foe, ticking silently away. You hide your self-hatred, doubts and pains, willing to forget it all. Wishing you could stay like that forever, with your family, in this time and world. Wishing, because you know you cannot have it and know that life will not be merciful to you, it never has been. So you gaze at the top of the swaying trees, and think of thunderstorms and rain. You think of sunrises and paint pictures in your mind in bright colors of destroyed streets and bare footed children who are walking calmly amidst them. And his memories- his, the other you, the one you've come to hate, his memories are haunting you. His dreams are mixing with yours, his ambitions rewriting the ones you use to have. Yet his love for his brothers top everything that you have ever felt, even toward Bianca, and you can't help but to wonder what a fucked up world it must have been that he loved his brothers more than he loved his wife.  
Only, he and Bianca never got married in the other reality and the pain he felt for that choice is tearing you apart in the daytime and isn't letting you sleep at night. In the evenings and afternoons, on the brick of exhaustion, you want only to forget, to cease remembering the course of time that was planted in your head forcefully and that no matter what you tried simply refuses to leave. You hate the other you, the one who loved when you didn't and that is now dead when you are alive and love them. You hate him so much that sometimes when you wake up it is the only thing that you can think of; the first thought that creeps into your mind is about him, his life and how to destroy him.

You are tired, always tired. Reality and dreams begin to mix together, integrate into each other to create a greater picture of horror. Some kind of a joke at your expense that you really don't appreciate, even if you had understood what was funny about it. You cannot sleep, not while the nightmares are trying relentlessly to bring you to the edge of insanity. And you are not so sure anymore that they didn't succeed. Because sometimes when you wake up and realize that you are in a time other than yours and that your family and world are different as well, sometimes, most of the time, you are sure you've lost it. Every cell in your mind must have been blown up one time too many while you weren't watching, while you were planning taking over the world, it crept up on you. It won.

For how can it be that the life you are living is actually true? Wouldn't it be easier, you sometimes wonder in the safety of your mind, to simply declare yourself as a whacko?

And when you wake up in the morning and go downstairs, you meet them and just for a second you wonder what they are doing here- is it really possible that they are still alive? So you turn toward the woman who looks so much like Mom that it hurts, wanting to hold her close to your heart to see that she's real, that you are real.

Then you remember.

Everything comes back at once; how you reached here, the plan and how you must control yourself so they won't suspect anything.

So you force yourself to give her a warm hug instead, not allowing your body to hold onto hers even a second more than necessary, even a second less. You force yourself not to hug her desperately in fear that she might disappear, or to flinch away because her sight is bringing old ghosts back to life. But it is not easy to not show her even an iota of emotion when deep inside you are dying; longing with hate, rage and defeat mingling together, forever. She cannot help you, not when even you cannot help yourself.

And the worst thing is that the other Chris' memories are always coming to you at one point or another and you can feel that he had the same craving for her approval and the same ache every time he got near, the constant confusion, just like you. Through his eyes, you see how they treated you. . .him, but he could never be angry with them so you are angry for him. Your desperation and his seep into each other, into one person that simply cannot live like that. Cannot. Because you don't know anymore where you end and he begins, or maybe there's no point searching for that edge anymore, for it does not exist.

You know they are going to ask you those annoying questions when you are separated from her but hope, just like every morning, that this can be delayed just for one more minute. So you steal minutes away from the frame of time, knowing that all those missed seconds will one day come together as a great mistake but in each and every morning, you don't give a damn. For in this second that lasts far more than any second you have ever experienced and that surely has some scientific explanation, something about time distortion and how wormholes pierce through the wrong place, nothing matters. The world could drown and quack with you in the middle, turn into a giant monster of lava, and you would still be standing open mouthed to the wonder that your mind simply cannot digest, not even if it was given a million of years. And you only gave it a minute.

Then you tear your eyes away from hers and it's ok to breathe again while at the back of your mind there's already a new excuse to explain it away.

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	13. At Dawn

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**Chapter 11**

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It's been seconds yet you still stand frozen trying to snap out of it, but can't. Time freezes but then fastens once again even though reality is doomed to never change. Maybe it's for the best.  
He smirks at you and his yellow spiky teeth are almost glowing in the darkness. (Surreal isn't it, when demon's teeth are shining?)  
Within them, you see the reflection of everything you have come to abhor, of all the vile endings and truths that you have mistaken as lies. He smiles at you, but his happiness is ugly. Everything about him and this life is ugly. Everything you have done so far is ugly and there is only one way to change it.

You see surprise registered on his face when he sees something in your eyes. You do not know if he sees the truth there or thinks it was merely a trickery of the lights. It does not matter; everything is deceptive one way or another.

"Go," you say with a hoarse voice, demanding him to go back to his den and leave you and your family alone. You are done with it; the Underworld and your world will just have to manage without you. You cannot live like this anymore, hating yourself any longer. The funny thing about all of this is that you never knew that you felt this way towards yourself. You hid these feelings under self-assurance and lies, but their presence along with the other you's presence has shown you the veil that covers everything you have known and done. So you tear down the veil with so much self-conviction that your mind is actually in peace with your heart, sure that everything is going to be better.

Then you are going to the window and are opening it wide; the outside world cannot harm you any longer, you are beyond it. If anyone were to see you, you would let them look. You would let their scalding eyes wash over you and have fire erupt in your heart. You would let the outside world see you if it were the only way for you to ever find peace and for your heart to ever be purified from all the evil that you have inflicted. Let it be if it were the only way. Let it be.  
You deeply breathe in sweet calming air while wishing you could treasure it and have it with you always. Then you remember that it will be with you for eternity because you will stay here. You will stay by the outside being's side and there is nothing anyone can do to change it. You will always take these deep fulfilling scents in your heart as long as you are near your family. You will tell them everything, every little detail, let them be your confessors, and let them forgive you and forgive yourself. You will let the catharsis wash over you like their love.

You descend the stairs like a king coming back to his old kingdom, like a lost son. You see their faces turn to you, their smiles. You remember Bianca, in this life and the other, as well as Wyatt and Adam who sacrificed everything they had for this moment. In your heart, you ask your fallen brothers and wife to forgive you now, when the moment is finally perfect. They answer you in the language of angels, yet you know that if you could understand what they are saying it would probably be that they are with you- all the way.

The girls are saying something to you but a far away thunder is hitting the ground, scorched hopes having no remedy. Paige's mouth is moving accompanied by exaggerated and wondrous hand gestures, yet not a sound reaches you. Somewhere across the border there are three children playing and laughing. You can taste their joy on the tip of your tongue. You do not know how you know that they are there, but you know this is true; they are happy. There is a little child crying across the seas, terrified that his father will not escape the voracity of the waters and you are connected to his heart with threads none can cut. If you could, you would have reached out and touched his shoulder while telling him everything is all right. You can sense the father and he is in peace and well. Yet the wind covers all other emotions, magnificent with its touch. You cannot resist but instead let it wash over you, and you melt as it passes by.

_Come with me, _it whispers in your ear and you can hear thousands of trees and rains calling for you, begging you to be locked by their touch. You do not think anymore but let it carry you, let the feelings overwhelm you for you are none but one insignificant in the world of billions. _Come to me._

"Hey, where are you going?" Phoebe's voice is like a knife in your mind, the fog almost vanishes completely, and you ponder: where are you going?

_Home._

Nothing matters anymore. Not your aunts or your family but the feelings of belonging so strong that it is more than everything you have ever dared feeling. There is sunshine in the horizon, new rainbows and clouds that need mounting. _Let me have you._

You let it.

A whirlwind of colors and sounds cross over you leaving you panting with disbelief that such beauty existed without you ever knowing about it. Walls and fortresses are being built and torn apart, cities conquer and are conquered, and your army spreads away to seek the wisdom of the four ladies of the wind chart. Everything happens so fast and far away, blink – and you miss it.

Suddenly, shadows cover the land; scattered and scared there is a herd of sheep trying to find a safe harbor from the rain. Yet the shepherd has gone. One by one, the sheep either fall to forces of nature or fight for domination. You touch them and then all the fear goes away and you are being washed with the feeling that everything will be all right. As long as you are here by their side, they will be all right.

From the corners of the globe, there is a wolf calling for its prey, lulling them to come to its mouth willingly and you feel the sheep drift away from you. So you stand in front of the wolf to protect what is rightfully yours, as mighty and strong as one of the gods themselves.  
He strikes first but in a matter of seconds, you win. The blood spills over you, your hands are scarlet and your cloths are oozing with filth. Nevertheless, you get up and with a shrill of excitement and butcher all the remaining sheep for they had considered following another other than you.  
Watching the graveyard that is spread around you, you turn your head and hear someone laughing. It takes a moment to realize it is you.

You do not know how long you stood there and laughed but in the end the hysterics vanished and you are left with a deep, calming feeling of rightness. Then the world pales and turns to a deep red. Everything; even the air and the soil turn into matching colors.

You hear steps. Gradually, they grow nearer. You do not try to get away; something is telling you that it is all right. Besides, even if you wanted to there is no place to hide.

Kyla appears out of thin air. "Come with me," she whisperers, her voice sending hot shivery lines down your spine. "Come to me."

The steps are coming closer and a sudden wind is slapping your cheeks angrily. You take it as a sign to go with her and as you take her hands inside yours, the world fades into a black hole once again.

When the view comes into focus again, you can see that you are in her lair. Her and yours lair actually, since this is the place where you sat all those long days in the beginning and where you spent time knowing her as well as this world anew.

"Are you alright?" she asks. Then realizing how stupid her question must be, she hurries to inquire instead, "Physically, I mean."

"Why shouldn't I be?"

Kyla points to your blood soaked shirt and hands, then murmurs something in that ancient language that all but her has long since forgotten. The blood evaporates and you are amazed to discover that under it were hidden many severe wounds, reddening and swelling as the seconds pass.

She spares you a harsh look as if you were intentionally concealing those from her and then pushes you to your seat with a cutting, "sit." You are about to protest about her manhandling you but whatever it is that she has started doing feels too good. All the tension you did not know existed is leaking away from you and in no time Kyla's voice is becoming quieter as you drift away to the kingdom of dreams.

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When you wake up it takes a few moments for the past events to come back to you, nevertheless, the calmness continues to engulf you and you don't hurry to get up on your legs.

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The next time you open your eyes you see wide opened eyes staring back at yours. You jump in alarm but then you feel a familiar touch on your shoulder and Kyla's whole face is coming to view.

"Easy, now. How do you feel?"

You consider your situation and find that you feel surprisingly good. Nothing hurts, and if you thought that the uncomfortable position you fell asleep in would grant you a strained neck, you were wrong. Whatever her voodoo thing was, it worked. "I feel fine. Thank you."

"You welcome." Those dimples smile at you but then they are gone and a frown covers her face. "What in the world happened?"

"I . . . don't know?" Ok, so it's not very lord- like but it is the best you've got under the circumstances. Then you catch something red on her side. "Are **you** ok?"

If possible, the scowl deepens. "Yes, not thanks to you. When you orbed down here you began attacking me! Mind telling me what that all was about?"

You stutter, "I . . . attacked you?" Fine, not your finest hour.

"Yes! You should be grateful that I didn't kill you," she huffs again and says something that sounds suspiciously like, "those insolent fools that only hell knows why I like…."

"I'm sorry," you say and actually mean it.

Kyla looks at you with a penetrating gaze. Then something passes in front of her eyes and her whole posture softens. "Never mind," she shrugs it away. "The important thing is that you're ok."

You wish you could agree that nothing else matters, but it scares you that you attacked her without even knowing it. Then a thought strikes you- the girls! You must have scared them half to death!

You jump from the sofa as if it has bitten you, beginning to splutter apologizes and explanations. "I'm sorry, I have to leave. I walked out to the girls. They must think I'm out of my mind, or in trouble! Gotta go, really!"

"Sit," she orders again and gives you something purplish looking to drink.

"I can't. I'm . . . sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you or anything but they'll go ballistic. . ."

"So a few more moments won't hurt," Kyla says in a calm voice and shoves the cup back in your hand. "They'll even worry more if you won't drink it and appear half dead on their doorstep. Now, drink."

You recognize her wisdom and study the thing you are supposed to drink. It is steaming and every once in a while there is a little popping bubble jumping from it. You can swear there is a little mix of green in the corner that looks too much like goo to your liking. You sneak a look in Kyla's direction and note the determined gaze that Mom wore when you and the spinach had a fight. Guess who won. . . .  
Well, the sooner you get it over with the better. You take a big breathe, close your nose, and force yourself to gulp it down in one big swallow.

You put down the cup on the nearby table. "Thank you. There was a mint in there somewhere, I think." You try not to think that it's probable that it was actually green goo.

Kyla does not pay attention you, though. Her eyes are continuing to go up and down your body, studying you intensively. Finally, she proclaims, "You look different."

"Yeah, your yummy thing helped me get better." Well, a little flattery never hurt anyone. . .

She looks at you impatiently as if knowing what you are trying to do. She probably does know what you are trying to do. "No, there's something different. You've changed."

"Well, I'm not the ruler of the world anymore."

"You sound almost . . . happy."

"I am happy," you say honestly, knowing full well that she's not going to like it but also knowing there's no way you can lie to her- you never could.

"I see," Kyla whispers and there is sadness in her voice. "You **have** changed."

"I guess."

You both are quiet for a minute, thinking of the implications such an admission applies. You are enemies now, yet it is obvious that you cannot hate her any more than she can hate you.

"Is it because of your family?"

She sounds genuine enough so you answer as genuine as possible. "Partly. I discovered that there's freedom on the side of good. I can be whoever I want to be and they'll always accept me."

"I always accepted you," she says but there is no hurt in her voice or maybe you just can't detect it.

"I know, but that's different. They're my family; they'll do everything to protect me."

It looks like for a moment she's about to say that she, too, will do everything to protect you, but stops herself just in time. Maybe its better that she didn't say it. It would have complicated things that are already complicated enough.

"What about the murderer of Bianca? Will you let him go free?" There is challenge in Kyla's words and you ponder the possibility of revenge again. You've change, though. It does not hold the same appeal to you as it used to have. He's not the same person here; therefore, it won't be the same anyway.

"Yes, I will," you say in what you hope is not in a too defensive tone. "He's different in this reality, there's no point."

"You have become weak!"

"No, just different." You try to explain but know it is useless. You cannot even explain it to yourself. Trying to change the subject, you say, "I saw the other Chris's memories."

Kyla jolts with that piece of information. "You . . . you have?"

"Yeah. It was a real eye-opener."

"What do you mean 'eye opener'?" You can practically hear her using the apostrophes. "Is that what changed you?"

You delve inside yourself, searching for the answer. It was only the beginning. It was what made you see that you were blind. The rest is more complicated, you're not even sure you understand it. But somewhere along the way, you understood what family and morals really meant. And . . . it changed you, for better or for worse.  
"No, it's not." But even as you speak, you see that she is not convinced.

"What did you see?" Kyla asks and there is intense fire in her voice, as if she is going to fight it. And the scariest part is that you know she will. She cannot win, though, for how can one fight a memory?

"His life, his death, Bianca. Everything that made him himself."

"So you decided to become him?"

"It's not that simple." You sigh, trying once again to defend yourself, wondering maybe if this is in fact very simple. Trust you to overcomplicate everything. "I didn't become him. We're different. For starters he didn't know the amazing you." You smile weakly, hoping that will ease her mind.

Right. . .

"You act like him, you sound like him and you took over his role in his family. I wouldn't really call that such a difference."

"I didn't take over his family!" you cry out, offended. "They are mine, too!"

"No, yours are dead, remember? You killed them."

That was harsh. It seems like even Kyla understood it was over the line and regretted it the moment she said it, but it was too late. Words let free can never be taken back; they are destined to dwell in the hearts of both the receiver and who unleashed them into this world. Maybe this ancient curse was meant to save the world from the fault of the words. If that is so, it failed miserably.

"I'm sorry," she says and even though you know how much that must have cost her, it is hard to forgive. But in order to change you promised yourself you will forgive more.

So you look at Kyla square in the eyes and say stiffly, "That's ok."

You both know it's not, but it's a lie you both can live with.

"What about your plan? Everything is nearly ready." She sounds docile but the fire has not left her voice yet, it is like invisible steel that only you and she can feel. Maybe it's the truth. Maybe you are the only one besides her that can sense it, the only one that knows her enough to detect it. Then it dawns on you, what Kyla fears.

"The fact that I've changed doesn't change anything between us," you say and try to believe in your words, cursing the prejudices that made this situation harder than it should be. Your family will never accept her as a friend and the Underworld will never accept you ever again after your ploy will be broken. And by association to her, will refuse to accept her as well. In fact, they will probably think of her as a betrayer. But you can protect her from that, if she only let you.

"There is no us," she exclaims but she can no longer hide her hurt, so she chose anger instead.

"We are friends, Kyla. Don't lie to me. You didn't take care of me all this time only for the 'plan.' You could have killed me a million times and taken over everything, but you didn't."

"The Chris I use to know didn't believe in **friendship**," she snores stubbornly. "Everything in life is about loss and gain. What in the world would I gain from killing you now?"

"Power." You gently remind her of the most important thing of all. "You could say that you killed me and have them as your army."

"Naa," she shrugs but averts her eyes, hiding them from you. "That wouldn't have worked. Besides, I'm not cut to be a leader."

You grin mischievously. "You like me."

"Don't be ridicules. It's purely for self- preservation."

"Nope, you like me." There's a twinkle in your eyes, you can see it reflecting from hers.

Kyla grabs the cup and sniffs it. "Maybe it was too strong. . ." You are not fooled by her feigned concern. You can see the amused glint that she's not trying too hard to hide.

"What was that, anyway?" you ask, genuinely curious. She looks at you for a moment surprised, but then her gaze wanders to the walls around you, scratching her neck as if it's the most important thing in the world she has to do.

You can swear that she coughs something that sounds similar to "aspirin" but aspirin isn't purple . . . right?

Wearing a serious expression, she points to the cup. "It's an ancient potion my mother used to give me when I got into fights. It should preserve one's mental age but I guess it works different on alternate universes travelers."

"But what's in the potion?" Well, one doesn't get to be a ruler without a healthy dose of curiosity.

"A . . . root." Is that a blush?

"What kind of a root?"

"I don't know its name." Kyla sounds almost irritated. Almost. "I only know what it looks like."

"Fine, what does it look like?"

"Why does it matter to you, anyway?"

"Why are you avoiding the question?"

"I'm not."

"Hu huh."

"Stop doing that," she hits you lightly on the shoulder. "I'm feeling five years old again."

"You were young once?" It shouldn't surprise you but somehow you always imagined that the demon community in this world didn't age, just like the angels in your time.

"Well, I wasn't born 347 if that's what you're asking."

"Come on, tell me what it was like."

"Like your childhood, I guess." She starts saying something but then quiets. Maybe she remembers that you have killed your family, that your childhood wasn't too happy. Maybe Kyla's childhood was the same and she doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

You can understand her.

"It was asporna," she says calmly as if nothing of the above happened. You can live with pretending. You are use to it.

Asporna, huh? Not aspiring then, right? "Not aspiring then, right?"  
So much for cunning. . .

"No." There's that blush creeping on her cheeks again. It appears that with these words, the atmosphere sobers but you joke on one more time, for the fun of it.

"So we are friends, right?"

"Yes, we are. Fortunately for you."

"Oh, yes. What I would do without you."

"Becoming cocky, aren't we?" Kyla asks but that amused glint just doesn't leave her eyes. Maybe **she **drank something.

"Maybe," you admit and pat her on the shoulder, relived that she seems to accept you and sees you are not a different person than you used to be. You care about Kyla opinion, you suddenly realize. You care about her. You have truly become friends. Oh, how have the mighty fallen. . .

"Promise me one thing, Chris," she says in an entirely different tone, one you haven't encountered yet- one that is real. "Let me save you," Kyla tells you softly and you stop yourself from laughing in her face. Save you? Why does everyone feel the need to save you, to fight your fights? Can't you for once decide what **you** want?  
But a small, almost undetected doubt is rising in your heart. Maybe you aren't qualified to manage your life. Your brothers were right to save you, after all. You feel better. Maybe you just need one more saving.

"You don't need my permission for that."

"I swore to you in this place that I would never disobey you and that your wishes would be sacred to me, but I can't see you like this, abandoning all that you have cherished before. Please, Chris for the sake of our friendship let me save you."

"You can't," your mind speaks without consulting you. But it's right, she cannot save you. Even if you wanted to be saved, you are too far on the other side.

"Let me try," Kyla begs and something stirs inside you. Something in you wants to give her hope because you know you are all she has left. She can't save you but if it gives a meaning to her life, why can't she try? How much could it hurt?

So you shrug nonchalantly. Let her try. There's a light shining in Kyla's eyes again, maybe a sign that everything is going to be all right. Your gut is telling you that something crucial just happened but you can't pin point what exactly it is, so you shrug it away. You'll know in time.

Later, you will say that you should have listened to your gut and done something. That you should have even gone to the extreme of killing Kyla if you couldn't convince her not to save you. Because some savings are not worth having, they are simply wrong. But everyone is smarter in hindsight, and maybe you needed some things to happen before the world lent you a hand and helped you do what none could- what none should do. But you were always different; the world always gave you tests that others didn't even think of needing to pass. In the end, maybe it was better that way. Maybe if the world would someday end in fire, you could make it. Because you're you, and you are destined to survive everything.  
When tomorrow comes you will realize just how cruel life can be, but before that, you still have a few hours of blissful peace, before the storm will hit and shutter all other realities.

Before night awakens.

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	14. And The Hourglass Shatters

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**And The Hourglass Shatters. . . **

_**Part 1**_

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Since the dawn of time, human beings strived for acceptance from their peers. It may be a social mechanism that enabled them to survive in a group, but more likely it is simply that they feel better that way- when they are respected and loved. Their self-value grows and in the end, they might actually even accept themselves.

It's a load of bullshit, really, but one you can relate to. You tried living in a world where all compassion was being uprooted but discovered it to be faulty. You didn't know you felt that way before you encountered the alternative, but once you came and found the love your family could give- you were hooked. There's no way that you can succumb to compromising any longer. Why should you when everyone else in the world is allowed to be loved?

More than that, you _love_ your family. You don't want to hurt them anymore, for you have come to really see them as who they are; they are more than the mere strangers that you were led to believe they were most of your life.  
You came to care about Phoebe with her blunt honesty, her will to help everyone and optimism for the best. She was the goddess of love when the Titans came in this world and you can't think of better a description that would fit her.  
It's impossible to not care about Paige with her utmost loyalty toward everything magical, who will sacrifice her very soul if it would only help those she loves. She's not a quitter either and deep inside you hope that this annoying stubbornness of yours was actually her influence. The same stubbornness that lurked in your genes without you ever even knowing.  
Mom…how different she is from the mother you grew up with; less hysterical and more willing to openly show her love. She will fight for you and you know with a new clarity that you are now being blessed with that maybe your mom was like that as well. Maybe you have wronged her. You refused to listen to anything she said your entire life because you thought Wyatt and Adam meant more to her. Little did you know as a child that a blind son simply requires more care than a normal one does. If you had known it is not about different love but about making a choice, would you have been different as well?  
And Leo…Dad…how is it that in the long years he was with you he never said that he loved you, but now he tells you it all the time? Were you wrong all these years, or was he wrong and cooped inside himself all the things he never dared to say? How could he have let you hate him like that and act as if it didn't mean a thing when it's obvious now that such hate killed him inside? How could he let you hate him?

You wonder and know that this is mystery that will have to be revealed the same way that everything else is- in time. After all, trust must be regained and nightmares must be abolished once again. Then, and only then, will there be an era of healing.

You tiptoe on the stairs of your house, trying to come inside without alarming any of its residents of your arrival. You don't really hope to postpone the revelation eternally; you are realistic and know that at one point or another you will meet your family and then, oh, your ears will burn. But after the truth is told, maybe there will be peace. The calm that comes after a storm.

"Where in god's name have you been?" Mom greets you at the door, her face sorrow stricken and gray. She was worried about you and that hurts more than most of the things you have endured; you know that such level of care comes only once in million years, and you are about to lose it.

You tell her the truth, "I had to go." There is no point in lying anymore, even if it sounds as if you are. Even if they think you are stalling or being your usual evasive self, even so, you will tell them the truth from now on. In bits, maybe, but in the end- the whole truth. "Can I come in, please?"

Maybe it's the "please" that does the trick; Mom always had a soft spot for manners, probably because you never managed to acquire them. So you get into the house- that warm, loving, so great house- and you hope that they will hear you out until the end, and only then will they kick you out. You dare not ask for more of them because you don't expect much more. You deserve everything they do, even not hearing you. Still, you hope they hear you out.

But also that they won't because that way all the incriminating things you have done will rest in peace in your heart and not in theirs. Maybe this way their love is still salvageable and you won't be so empty. It's what you hope for, but it's not what you deserve.

You don't know what will happen if you look into your parents eyes. You can tell them the whole truth- the truth they have never suspected or have suspected but left to themselves out of love for you- and then see all their love evaporate into thin air, into nothing, into hate.  
Yet courage is doing the things you need to do even if you don't want to do them, or so you were told. You always considered yourself someone who did what was essential, what the world needed but never had the courage to do itself. You always had courage. You will not become a coward now.

So you swear here and now in this place that you will not take the easy way out. You will not hide things from them nor beautify yourself in words. You will let them see the real you, the one even you do not want to see, but you'll let them, because you love them even though you've never deserved an ounce of their love.

"Are Paige and Phoebe here?" you ask and ignore for a moment the suspicious look that she is wearing, for all will be revealed soon.

"Yeah, should I call them?"

You think for a minute whether it will be a good idea, or should you tell Mom first and let her tell her sisters. Maybe that way the hatred wave will lessen.

But no, you will not be like that. You swore. "Yeah," you take a big breathe, dreading what you are about to do. "Please do."

and she's calling them and they're coming down the stairs andreaching you andtheir eyes arefinding yours, and they are quiet. They're not asking what you need, what's the rush or any other questions from the gazillion that they could have asked and that you anticipated. They're not letting you get away with the confession, you realize. You respect them for that, but also hate them for that. Because even when you were little, before you found out about everything, before nothing ceased to matter, you prayed. The prayers held the essence of your childhood dreams of the innocent that's now long gone and you know that even if you wanted to, the ability to get on your knees and pray for absolution from the mighty power that lies in the heavens has forsaken you. Yet you are not beyond asking for mortal forgiveness. You need it, you pray for it.

"Mom, Aunts, I've got something to tell you."

There is no question in their eyes, only warmth. They probably did sense that something was wrong but let you handle it on your own terms. They believed in you; that when you need help you'll come to them and they believed they wouldn't judge you but help you and be beside you all the way. They believed in themselves and in you. They thought it will be easy and even if not easy, manageable. And even if not all of those, they thought they would be able to deal with that, to help you. But how can they help you to cease being yourself?

They are waiting patiently even though the silence stretches to uncomfortable lengths. You see Paige rolling her eyes at something that Phoebe must have whispered and you know that it's not the right time, you aren't ready.  
But it will never be the right time. You will never be ready. This is as good as it's going to get.

"I lied." You take another huge breath, trying to calm yourself and them. Maybe if they see how hard this is for you they will understand. "My world is not like I told you it is."

"Oh, honey, we know." Paige comes and taps on your head, near the scar. "We just didn't want to push you to tell us, but we're ready to listen whenever you need to talk."

"It's easier sharing the burden." Phoebe looks at you and there's compassion in her eyes. They think you live in the world the other Chris lived in. You suddenly understand- that's the way out!

You can back off now before...before they find out. You can stop everything from coming to light. You can hide from them, you can hide your secret forever and they will never know. They can protect you, you will protect them, and nothing will ever need to be uttered. You can become really theirs, your heart swells in realization. You've lied to your mom before, what's it matter if you do it again? What is it about second chances that makes you want to cleanse yourself from past sins?

Yet you cannot forget that you killed Mom for you see her lifeless corpse looking at you behind your eyes and you know in that second thatlying will never be an option for you. You cannot lie to them. You cannot lie to yourself.

"No, it's not what you think. . ." you admit and find that your voice is shaking, but you do not see a point in concealing it. So what if your voice is shacking? Who does it hurt thatfor the first time in your life you'll show emotions?

"Honey, you don't have to explain anything to us, really. We worry about you, that's what parents do." You can tell that Mom is burning inside; wanting desperately to know what is it that you conceal but is afraid to push you and by that make this worse. Only, she doesn't know she can't do anything to make it worse. This is the worst, as low as it's gonna get.

"What family does." Paige murmurs and you can detect the hurt lurking behind her words that she wasn't included, as if she didn't matter. Your aunts were always that way, as long as you can remember. Your aunts were part of your family, not as aunts, but as second and third mothers. It confused the hell out of you when you were little.

Piper shots Paige an irritated gaze and Phoebe looks annoyed. Either they've talked about it, which is very doubtful considering this is them, or they are on to something. Your Halliwell radar is at full range and all the plans you have made to come clean and tell the truth are being abandoned for a while. Something is definitely going on, something big.

"What's going on?" You never were the type to beat around the bush.

They look confused for a minute but then Mom shakes her head in Phoebe's direction, obviously telling her to get on with what they planned all along.

"We're so sorry, Chris." Phoebe comes close and you can now see there's a bubbling vial in her hand. God no, the figured you out! They are going to vanquish you! All the thoughts and dreams you have weaved are now gone for good.

Your heart beats faster and louder as your mouth becomes dry. You don't know what to do as your body and mind are sending mixed signals. _Run_! the body screams, _Live_!

But the heart, the bastard, is trying to sooth you, _Hear them._

But it's an organ, something that belongs to you. Your heart should follow you, not the other way around. Only, it doesn't. Your feet are rooted to the floor and all the blood goes to your ears, a strange buzzing filling them and you fear you will faint.

They are chanting something- something about the power of three and freedom from evil and you can't breathe. There's not enough oxygen in the whole world and your starving lungs are begging for more.

_Help! _you cry without words, without mouth movements and even without looking with your eyes. Your soul itself is breaking free from your body and trying to run, knowing you deserve what you will get and what hell will bring, but also knowing you cannot possibly face it alone. First, you need their forgiveness and that's the one thing you will never get.

"I'm sorry." You hear Mom's muffled words and her cold hand resting on your forehead. Only her hand isn't so cold anymore, it's warm, it's burning. It's you who is cold and who will never be warm again.

In a single moment, the entire world shatters into tiny pieces of lost dreams that you know you will never be able to recover. Not even time will be able to get those dreams back, they are doomed.And you are now doomed with them.

**TBC**


	15. And The Hourglass pt 2

_Thank you for your reviews!_

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**And The Hourglass Shatters...**

**Part 2**

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Colors are returning to the world and you see it reforming again as it takes the shape of a cave. Kyla's cave, you suddenly understand and wonder why Hell took this form to torture you. You are sure that there are more fitting ways.

You hear a strange voice proclaims, "You summoned me." The masculine voice sounds familiar but you cannot pinpoint from where or when. The man is arrogant, yet not confident enough to reveal his face and chooses instead to hide under a black robe.

You choke out, "Me?" but no voice comes out. In fact, the man doesn't even seem to mind you; you are ghost to him. A frightening idea comes to your mind- what if you are a ghost?

"Yes, I have," replies Kyla's silky voice.

The last shred of sanity you possessed is now floating away and you can't even detect it fast enough to catch it and put it back in its rightful place.

"Why?"

If you hadn't known better you would've assumed that this was a leader of some kind, but then how would he have been summoned in this manner?

"Because I need you and it's in your best interest to help me."

"I don't need your _help!_" he spits.

"Oh, but you do. You could have resisted my calling, couldn't you?"

"It's not that simple…" he sighs. It is strange, hearing him do that. As if he has feelings. As if anyone in Hell can be seen as human.

"I know you, Belthazor." Something in that name lights something in your heart. You've heard that name before, but where?

"Only by reputation."

"Oh, but this is so much more. I now things about you that no one else can. I know about your father, Cole, and your little witch." Kyla says cocily and without wanting to, you suddenly shudder.

"Anyone in the underworld that was around long enough knows about that." He sounds controlled, but you can detect the slight quiver in his voice.So can she.

"I haven't summoned you to exchange barbs with you, Belthazore. Your precious witch needs help and you and I are the only ones who can give it to her."

"I don't care anymore." He sounds genuinely tired and you can relate to that. But why, why for all the demons in hell, are you being shown this? What is the purpose of this theater? Where's the punishment?  
Where are the flames?

"I think you do. Hear me till the end. If you don't want to do it, you can go back to your…_life_."

"I'm listening."

"First, let me update you on some…occurrences. Piper Halliwell has two sons now. One of them is the Twice Blessed and the other one named Christopher. . ." She's not talking about what you think she's taking…right? "Now, an older Christopher came back in time to save his big brother, succeeded and returned home. The details are a bit vague here, but what will really interest you is that three months later another Christopher comes; only this time he's on the side of evil."

"All very interesting, but why am I being told all this?"

"Patience is a virtue, haven't you heard?  
"Anyway, it seems that the Other Christopher's memories are tempering this one's. And now for your excellent question as to what's your business in this- you go back and kill the Other Christopher before his psyche can be embalmed in the world. That way no memories will be set aloft in the air and this…more desirable version of Christopher will not be . . . poisoned."

He grunts, "What am I getting out from all this?"

"Power. Respect. Your life back."

"If I wanted that I would have come back by myself."

"I can make your little witch die with him!"

"You wouldn't dare!" His fist almost hits her but she only smiles.

"I will do everything necessary to save Christopher and Evil."

"You want to save him by killing him?"

"Only another version of him, one that weakens him, that doesn't let him grows and be what he can be- a powerful leader of the underworld. He can save us all, Belthazore. As a son of the Charmed One he has the power to do anything."

"All very altruistic and everything, but where do you come into the equation?"

"That's not for you to know!"

"Hit a sensitive spot, have I? Nevertheless, I don't see much gain from doing as you want. The Charmed Ones dealt with demons more powerful than you before, there's no chance of Phoebe getting hurt. And even if there was, I don't care about these kinds of things anymore."

"You're lying. You care, more than you are willing to admit. I know what love is, Belthazore, even though they say demons can't love."

"_This _is why you are doing this? For _love_?"

"No . . ." she says but she's not really convincing.

"I think that's it. Who could have guessed, the big bad Kyla fell in love? So let me tell you something about love- don't play with it. It hurts, more than anything you have ever experienced. Even death can't overcome love. And _he_ will never love you back. That's the way things are. Face it."

She takes big breathes and pales. "What gives you the right to educate me, you fool of a demon? I will not make your mistakes!"

"Yet you need my help." He answers calmly.

"Just like you need mine to win her back."

"She's not something that can be regained." Then his gaze falls on the empty corner where you are hiding and for a moment you forget to breathe, but then his gaze leaves you and you feel free once again. "But I will help you."

"Thank you." Surprisingly, there is no arrogance in her voice.

He studies her and nods. Then says in a rough voice, "Now leave me, I need to prepare myself for the battle."

She's hesitant for a minute, but then shrugs and leaves him alone, her steps echoing until they disappear entirely. Only then does Belthazore open his eyes, his gaze holding yours as if he knows you are there. "I can see that you disapprove. No need to scowl so theatrically."

"You . . .can see me?" you shriek in a none too dignifying manner, still trying to come to terms with what was happening and with the betrayal.

"Of course I can. In order to come forward I had to have the power to see through the different layers of reality."

"So why didn't you say anything?"

"Did you want me to? She was talking about _you_ after all, wasn't she?"

"So why are you talking to me now?" You try to understand but your brain and the heart you never even knew you had hurt too much.

"I wanted to get your opinion." He shrugs as if it's nothing important. "This is your life we were discussing, after all."

"You wouldn't kill the Other Me if I asked you to?" you stutter like a small child but you forgive yourself because for now it's ok to break down.

"I might. Are you asking?"

You stare at him, open your mouth to say something but nothing comes out. You have no idea anymore what's your own good, and what's the Other Chris' good. No one has ever bothered to ask you what you wanted so you just got used to it. So now when you have a opportunity to influence a decision about you, you're not sure anymore what to do and if he really means what he says- that he will hear you. He said that since it's your life that's on the line you deserve to be heard as well. Where was he all these years? Where was he when you were forced to become you and kill your bothers? Now you have a chance to redeem yourself in your own eyes, to make a difference, to make a stand that will change your own life instead of clinging on to other lives, to change, simply because you never could influence yours. You want to believe that you can do it, that you won't be so dependant on the world's blame but do something about it. But can't. Maybe Kyla's right; perhaps inhaling the essence of the Other Chris has weakened you so much that you don't know what the right path is any longer.

"Look at you," he shakes his head arrogantly, but beneath the surface you can see emotions deeper than he will ever dare show. "You don't even have an idea of what you want."

"This isn't that simple." It's an excuse. So what?

"I'll simplify it for you- do you want the reminder of the other Chris gone, or not? Do you want to change, or stay as you are; hurt, in love, human?"

You raise your eyes to match his and whisper, "Will the pain go away then?"

He studies you and there's pity in his eyes but also understanding so deep that it cuts through your heart. "Nothing can make the pain go away, Chris. Your aunt hurt me more than anything in this world, just like your family's love hurt you. It's because we were raised differently, as demons- beings that aren't supposed to love. The other ones…they just don't get it. It's not that simple to just choose the right side when in both ways you can lose someone's love, is it? But I can't make that choice for you. I wish I could, though."

"You love Phoebe." A tear escapes, leaving a trail of wetness and sorrow to be forever imprinted on your face. You finally followed the dots. This is _the_ Belthazore. Cole. The one Phoebe used to love. "And I love Bianca. Does good and evil have a chance to ever be together, or are Romeo and Juliet the world's way of laughing at us?"

He comes closer and claps his hand on your shoulder. For a minute there's hollowness in the place warmth should have been but maybe it's more appropriate that way, he's a ghost, after all. So how can you ask for help from a being that no longer exists

"I will only help you if you want me to. I swore once to your mother that I would take care of her family and you are family. So I'll tell you the truth:sometimes love isn't enough. I loved Phoebe more than life itself. I came back for her from the grave but in the end, all it did was hurt her.So I stopped. Don't hurt Bianca by being with her because you died avenging her. She wouldn't have wanted that."

"I will never know what she wanted now, will I?" you scream like a hurt animal, andin a way you are because so far you have lived for the sake of the plan, only…you haven't. You forgot about it somewhere along the way while being with your family. Kyla's right, you suddenly realize with horror. You abandoned Bianca's memory. You forgot about her. You don't remember anymore the last time you thought about her. In the beginning, it was all you could think of but lately others have stolen your thoughts. Bianca's probably raging in Heaven right now.

"I can make the pain go away," he promises. "But you have to forgive me."

"I will always forgive you. You were almost my uncle." you say and can swear that you can feel the begining of a smile rising.

"Then promise me something in a vow that you will never break- you will not die for her. Nothing is worth it. Nothing, not even her. Trust me, I know."

You want to promise to live for her. You really do, but something stops you in the last minute. Instead, you whisper, "I promise I won't kill myself for her."  
When the time's right, you'll let others do it.

He nods and motions you to close your eyes.

* * *

_From Before Night Awakens:_

_The seventh wheel of eternity starts circling as the fires of doom rise from every corner, making the door of the damned open with scorch marks. One by one, as Pandora box is being opened, a wave of demons are resurrected from the underworld for a reason that was better stayed buried within the hearts of the deceivers.  
__The outer walls of the house shivers, ready to protect their habitants even in the cost of their lives. _This isn't a mere battle this time_, the clouds whisper to each other as they grow solemn in the sight of the massacre that is about to be held, _this is a war

_The earth is shaking furiously, opening its vast pharynx in hunger. It will return to its sleep only once sacrifice is made._

_While everything is happening, you watch incredulously at what seems to be taken from the Tales of Armageddon, and you simply don't know how you are going to save the world this time._

_You see a creature hurrying toward Wyatt in his weakened form after healing you, and even while struggling to get up, you simply cannot._

_Time freezes and then fastens again as there's nothing you can do. You're helpless, and that weakness has cost Wyatt his life. Now you know why he was turned. You._

_He's being taken. There's nothing you can do about it._

_You lost._

_Outraged, your feverish body abandons this earthly plain and forgets the pains and the aches that are all over you, and you run. Wyatt may have been taken, but you won't let your family be killed as well._

_Tears blind you and you don't see where you need to go. It doesn't matter, from every corner there are demons attacking you, and you fight each of them with equal determination, not ready to lose. You have already lost one thing, you will be damned if you'll let the universe win again._

_But as it seems, you have no choice. Mom**…**Piper**…**is not looking as the blue Garlik demon is ready to hit her with his venom. _

_Without wasting time, you step in front of her ready to protect her against all costs._

_A loud gong is heard and the demons disappear. The offering was accepted._

_Your life. _

_Now bitterly, you fall on your knees ready for your grand end. Death. _

* * *

"Thank you," you whisper as you feel something inside you changing, the emotions being sucked away and your heart breaking apart to tiny pieces, smaller than the molecules that are building your body. You want to scream from pain, pain that you don't even know it's origin. So you scream, and the ages of the world passes and comes again as the voice echoes to immeasurable lengths, and then you breathe in and then…

Silence.

* * *

When you open your eyes again you find yourself in the manor.

"What happened?" you ask Phoebe's concerned eyes.

"You were possessed. You're ok now." She whispers and you inwardly smirk. She thinks this was a mere possession, that this wasn't really you all along. This is good; it means your plan is working and all cards will soon be played out.

"Do you remember anything?" Dad comes and puts his hand on your forehead checking for a fever.

"No, nothing," you reply and realize that it's the truth; only fractured memories are coming forth, of hate and rebellion in the demons' forces, the plan…and Bianca's death.

You will retrieve your lost memories, but you aren't in a hurry. There are greater objectives to conquer, things that must come first.  
Speaking of which. . .

"I need to go to the book." You smile innocently enough and indeed they buy it.mYour emotional side has awakened in a roar,and it will not be obliterated by common sense. It is common. You are a king- one of a kind. One who loved and was loved by someone who was more worthy than god himself was, not mentioning mere humans. You simply forgot that.  
You will not forget again.

Maybe they see the stubborness. "Scoot along. You know where it is, though only god knows why you need it right now," Mom's voice breaks through your thoughts. She won't be alive for long.

You have a feeling you forgot something, that something has changed, but you don't have a clue what it is. So you tuck those feelings away, for now. Let the crows have their feast on the graveyard of what your emotions once were. All the love, the trust, the pain, all that you don't know its origins are now in you and you need to get rid of them. You need to get rid of all emotions for the greater good, for the sake of the plan, for her sake.

_Don't die for her,_ you hear a voice echoing in the wind. You don't know whose it is or why it haunts you. It doesn't matter. You let go, yet hate scalds even the most unsuspecting hearts. It is neither merciful nor forgiving, but comes as a storm that leaves in its wake only pain and destruction. For who could have known that this is the way of the hearts, to bleed?  
Maybe when they stop fighting the bleeding, the pain, will finally stop.

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	16. Parents Of Shame

_I'm curious to see your guesses... _

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They fault us.

They call themselves mothers and fathers and guides, and name us as their children, but we are not theirs to love when making dire mistakes. Jailors, I call them, for this is all they really are. The captors who decide what is wrong and what's right, who lives and who dies, and who will never even be allowed to be born. They have put us in cages, invisible, untouchable. Unbreakable. And we did not know that they were there; for when we touched we felt nothing, when we gazed we saw only void and when in anger- we could never even make a crack to allow us freedom. So we accepted the cage, and we named it as freedom for we did not know another way.

And we have not faulted them for they were our saviors and kings. They must have known better than us, we told ourselves in the nights. For how could they not when they looked at us with absolute conviction that their way is the right one? How could we doubt when they lived in the land of Heaven, and we lived scattered and alone in the ground of mortal souls?

We could not see past the illusion. We could not see past what we wanted them to be. We called them Light. For this is both what they represented, and the place where they dwelled.

Yet we have known all along that something was wrong. Our senses were smarter than us, and they usually are. We tried to ignore it, god is our witness that we have tried, for even we knew that some truths are better to remain as lies.

We tried to ascend ourselves, and to better ourselves, and become what they have expected from us. For we were their children, and we wanted their acceptances even in the cost of our selves. And we did not know that we were giving that up, we didn't realize, we didn't consider. Only in the nights, sometimes, when we couldn't sleep, the doubts would rise but we would smash it down like they were no more than a rebellious child. Or was it them that smashed it and we have learnt to call them ourselves?

We killed in their names and lied in their names and their names still were sacred for we have accepted our fear. We have not feared from them or feared for them, even for us we were no longer afraid; but of the world that rose up and shone as the seasons would pass and hunt us when we were most unprepared. For they created the world, they created the seasons. Yet they were the nature's worst enemy simply by being themselves.

We tried to walk in their way and to follow our own. To embraced their new rules and forget the ones the world has set. For law does not dwell here, in the kingdom of Heaven, even mother and grandma and grandpa agree. So why should we not fight when it is them who are fighting us, when it is us who are fighting ourselves, and even if we'd win- this is their victory anyway. For they have created us that way. They created us to win.

I told my brother that something was wrong but he only looked and wished to see heaven. And how could he not when the horns were so treacherously hidden, plain in sight- a gilded pedestal of diamonds and clouds?

"Don't look at the obvious." He laughed when I pointed at the sculpture and shuddered, and I seemed not to be able to convince him that it was he who was looking that way. Yet I could not fault him, even if I waned to fault him. Just like me he is human and we are making mistakes. The Elders can laugh at us if they please, let the sun itself show us that it, too, own her teeth. We would fight and would fail, fight and prevail, so were the words of the prophets. So they were my words. For they have called me their son. Their sun and their stars. Their sons and theirs daughters. So they have named us as people, a lie. Fathers are doomed to love. Mothers are supposed to be forgiving. For how else shall we learn compassion when they are showing us none?

So I stroke them and fought them and hated alone. As I have been all my life, as I have been in my death. _Embrace me and call me_, I asked them and yet they were laughing. _'Why should we brace you when you are but a wayward sheep?'_

'_Take from me wool! Lead me and feed me!'_ but they were not the war-words that I wished to tell.

"_You will lose. Let it go."_ I am hearing a voice_. "I cannot, my brother."_ I echo my truth. I wish that I could. I wish he could join me but my fate is to march on this territory alone.

And I tried to fight and tried to win. Poets will sing my name in wonder I was told in respect. But it wasn't be respect and they couldn't be shattered. Maybe only smothered by a pillow like a mother would do to her hated child.

"**_Be exiled from this place."_** I hear their words and regret my actions. Regret their words and remember my truths. It was worth it. Maybe. Nonetheless, it was done.

I shall go now to exile, I shall go now alone. Maybe there are other planes of being that will accept me as I am.

* * *


	17. Struck by Lightning

_Well, I know that I abandoned this for a long time. Truth be told, I actually wanted to delete the whole story since didn't think I ever finish it, not to mention that it's not relevant anymore in the timeline of Charmed. But I simply sat and started writing it again. I don't know if it's good, it's late in the night and tomorrow I have to go again for a long time so I won't have the time and patience to reread what I wrote, see if it's worth publishing and getting it beta-ed. But I'm publishing it anyway.. mainly because I think there isn't a sadder thing than an unfinished story and hoping that this will encourage me to continue writing it the next time I'm able.  
__If not, then, well, sorry. It's really almost the end, though; it'll be pity not to finish it already. So I hope I do. Thanks for all of you reviewers. You've been great.  
__Well, it's late, I babble, sorry._

* * *

**Struck by Lightning**

* * *

You wake up from a dream. Its sour taste is haunting your wakefulness and you heave away from the bed and to a nearby sink. You wash your hands and forehead, letting the comforting frigid to cool you, and then take one big gulp- and the horrid taste is gone.  
You don't know of what you have dreamt but of a hunter that awaits you behind the curtains. There is no use of being overly paranoid; you chastise yourself, refusing to see the dream as an omen to what is yet to come. You have never truly mastered the power of premonitions, what are the odds that here, in an entirely different place, when you haven't even tried- you succeeded?  
Yet the growing sense of wrongness is intense and dooming. You try to shake yourself away from it, but it won't go away. Falling back to sleep is proving to be impossible so you decide to use the unfolding situation for your advantage. There are only few more hours of sleep, anyway, and insomnia is kind to accomplishing the work you need to do faster.

The corridors are shady and mistrusting. Every squeak you are making is traveling for miles, awakening the dead. You can only hope the living will stay asleep. It's not like you won't be able to explain your presence in the attic easily, hell, even the truth will suffice, but you noticed in the last couple of days an increasing protectiveness toward you from your fake family, and you have no desire to confront their wrath because of a small matter like your working hours. So you creep as silently as you can, hoping not for the first time that you could master the ability to fly; to glide on the wind like a shadowy ally, even though you are not their ally, though they are not exactly your enemies either.

You want to love them, you really do. And you feel like once you loved them, even more than you did your family, and the sense of wrongness is spreading again, engulfing you entirely even though you try your damnest to fight it. This is impossible for such occurrences to take place. If you loved them once- you still should have. And you sure would have remembered that. So that only leaves a strange de-ja-vu feeling that needs to be ignored. Something the world is trying to confuse you with, maybe? It won't be the first time if it is.  
And forces above know that you want to be able to feel something toward your new father and mother and aunts. . and your new self. A willingness to fit in and to protect. To protect yourself, at least, for it does not matter where you are- you need to live.  
So it was written. So it was spoken years ago, that your death will open paths that no human being will be able to tread on. And ghosts, they lack the guts. So you better stay alive, you have to. After all, this was mom's wish.

Shadows are your friends and as you creep among them, you can feel them spreading a safety net around you- of lies. But what are lies if not truths distorted and what are truths but a lie in disguise? It never mattered; you remind yourself and go straight to the book, banishing the shadows. They will haunt you later, you know, but for now you let them go.

The book of your ancestors is heavy and inviting. As always. And full of deceit, again as always. There are so many things that you would have improved were you in their side, so many secrets that only those from within the inside circles of the enemy can posses and that can help those who wish to fight them. If you thought that would help, maybe you would have done it. Shift the balance; help make the neighborhood a better place and other pleasantries- and consequences be damned. But you are not here as a prince in a shiny amour. Not this time around. They are not your princess this time. There is another Raponzel waiting for you to save her, another far away kingdom waiting to be conquered. Nights are for foolish thoughts, you chastise yourself. You are more of a morning person.

You lay your fingers of the ancient writings, at first with fear and then almost gleefully. You made it, you deceived the book. You don't know how you did it but it doesn't matter. Something inside you knew you would. And maybe that what made it possible- believing in yourself. Perhaps the book only worked as a polygraph- detects a lie only because you know you lie.

And you can feel this is as true as it's going to get.

You search for the spell that you know exists there and no more than a minute later- finds it. The words are fading and the painting is surrealistic but you would know him everywhere. You snatch an empty piece of paper and scrawl the rhymes, learning them by heart. Now you would only need the power of three.

It's good to have a backup plan, then.

Dawn snuck into the world somehow and you suddenly realize that the sun is visible once again. It's a great metaphor, you're sure. Because today will be the day of your freedom, the dawn of your new self.

A quick stop at Kyla's, and you're ready. The clock it ticking and time shortening bit by bit, and you can almost hear its whisper- _soon_.  
So soon. Reach out your hand and grab it.  
Soon.  
Tonight.

* * *

He can feel the necessity in his veins, rushing him to adapt to this world more quickly. The world doesn't have the time.

The globe moved another mile toward the sun till he managed to relearn how to breathe. He tries to do it fast, he knows that everything is up to him, but he doesn't know if he even can.  
He hopes he can but hopes, he long ago learnt, are only useful if they're real.

So he tries harder, he came all the way down here. He won't fail now.  
And if he does fail, well- it's better than what awaits him anyway.

If he has been a religious man he would have prayed but as it is- he curses. The gods can go and screw themselves for all he cares. Nobody's going to stop him.  
This time, he'll win.

* * *

Now that the final moment is soon to come, you feel anxiety grabbing your stomach, and you retch. Disgusted with yourself you try to convince the butterflies to lave you alone; everything is going to be alright. But you cannot lie to yourself no matter how much you may want to.

This time tomorrow will not be as today. You'd either be winning- or in a fate worse than death.

* * *

I feel in what seems to be the first time the breeze in the air and take a moment to appreciate the feeling of freedom. So long ago I forgot what it's like to breathe that now that I actually can, I don't know how I've lived without it in the first place. I miss those I've left behind, sure, but wars are only won by sacrifices and my red lines were not yet crossed.

"TAKE ME!" I call to the master of winds; the one that I know is hearing me now and if he could- would have probably held my hand. I will win this, I know so. Not because I have a feeling. No, feelings are for the weak minded. But because the other possibility is the most probable.  
And my life, well- it's always beaten the odds.

* * *

You take a deep breath and a big step forward- and can sense that the Charmed Ones are right behind you. Like you anticipated all along.

And then you raise your eyes to meet the ones of the one you hate the most, the one who killed Bianca, and purr. "Remember me?"

Checkmate.


End file.
